If you—like me—have absolutely nothing to do on November 29 and feel desperate to ruin both your stomach and legs, then local endurance runners Phil Hargis and Mike Wardian have a fun activity for you: the Taco Bell 50K. In this peculiar ultramarathon—which, according to the organizers, is “not sponsored by Taco Bell, just fueled by it [taco emoji] [death emoji]”—runners will traverse 31.07 miles while stopping at nine (nine!) area Taco Bell locations and eating at least one menu item at each. The Instagram announcement really sells it. By the fourth stop, runners must have eaten at least one Crunchwrap Supreme or Chalupa Supreme. By the eighth, runners must have also eaten a Nachos BellGrande or a Burrito Supreme. There’s no Pepto or Alka Seltzer allowed, and if you puke you’re disqualified. The reward for “survivors” is an unspecified “commemorative item” and the knowledge that you’ve done something “completely stupid.” I signed up right away.
Quickly, the friend I registered with began texting in alarm. He’s always down for a bad time, but he’d watched some TikToks about this race, which has previously been held in Denver, and informed me of voluminous discourse about vomit. Also, he hoped to make me aware that the Taco Bell 50K purportedly has a higher “did not finish” rate than the infamously grueling Leadville 100. At first, I waved him off; this is a novelty ultramarathon with no entrance fee that draws extremely casual runners like me who have absolutely no business attempting it, so of course lots of people don’t finish. But then I began to worry. Endurance running can produce gastrointestinal hiccups even without the involvement of a Burrito Supreme. I contacted the organizers. “The worst decisions can lead to the best outcomes,” were Hargis’s encouraging words.
“Oh, dude, I would say to just come out and see,” Wardian told me. “There’s no cost, and I’m sure you’ll have a great time, and you might surprise yourself about how far you can go.” Yes, I replied, but I only run 15 miles a week, so I’m hopelessly unprepared for a 30-mile race. Wardian reassured me that even if I walked the whole thing, I could probably finish within the cutoff of 11 hours. “We want it to just be about getting people outside, doing something fun together, having a laugh.”
Wardian cannot personally attest that the Taco Bell 50K is a good idea, having never run the Denver one, but he’s generally an enthusiast of food stunts. “I’ve done beer-miles, I’ve done taco-miles, I’ve done a Krispy Kreme challenge where I ate one doughnut for charity every mile of a half-marathon,” he said. “I was just at Burning Man, where I did a 6-12-18-24 challenge where it’s orgasms, beers, donuts, and miles, and you can do them in any order you want.” None of that seemed to have caused him lasting bodily harm—but he did note the importance of acclimating oneself to running on a full stomach, which he will personally be doing this week. Wardian is vegan and hasn’t eaten Taco Bell in “probably 20 years,” so he’s going to try some different menu items in advance of the race to “figure out what kind of food works.”
By this point, I was reasonably convinced that the Taco Bell 5oK was a fun idea that at least wouldn’t kill me (though I signed a waiver promising not to sue if it does), so I asked for additional strategic advice. Wardian told me to “avoid the super spicy sauces” and make my food choices “as plain as possible”—unless I’m shooting for adventure over speed, in which case “there’s a whole menu of options.” On race day, he and Hargis both plan to order ahead on the Taco Bell app so they’re not wasting time at each location waiting for their food to be prepared. Personally, I will be relishing whatever moments I can spend standing still.
Hargis finds it “pretty cool” that of the 225 runners currently registered for the Taco Bell 50K, there are a number of people like me who have never run an ultramarathon before—who never even would have considered registering for one—but who nonetheless plan to show up. He thinks this low-stakes race might be an on-ramp into that particular nook of the sport. “But it’s just a good chance to get together and have some fun,” Wardian said. On Sunday, he ran the Marine Corps Marathon and, “Oh my god, dude, everybody was so excited to talk to me about it.” Apparently, runners were stopping him on the course, telling him how pumped they were to eat Taco Bell and run.
I’d come into this call with copious and well-founded concerns, unsure if I’d actually show up to the race. But now, I felt committed. In fact, my one remaining worry was disqualification; What if I got 25 miles and eight stops into this ludicrous run and then got sent home, right before the end, for throwing up? “I don’t know how we’re going to police that,” Wardian told me, which was all I needed to hear. Nobody is going to stop me from finishing the Taco Bell 50K—a race for which I have not trained, do not plan to train, and wasn’t even sure I wanted to run in the first place—even if I puke.
