Refueling at the Buc-ee’s Gas Station Marathon

Steve Svoboda is going to run 26.2 miles around a single Buc-ee’s - his favorite all-American gas station - fueled only by their cult-status food.

May 02, 2024

What do you think of when you think of America? There’s a good chance it’s cars.

As a proud geographer and less proud British person, I have always been fascinated by how the USA has been constructed (and why, of course, but that’s a whole different book). While other nations build high-quality, high-speed mass transit, America is all about giant cross-country freeways. Single-occupancy automobiles, buses, and trucks are the preferred modes of American transport. They all need roads.

Road trips are a wonderful rite of passage, of course, and I’ve done my fair share since moving to the States. Last year, I traversed the West Coast, from L.A. to Portland, and took in a wealth of bland tarmac, leftfield landmarks, and heady clusters of fast food titans and gas station wonders every 10 miles or so.

Steve Svoboda outside the Springfield, Missouri Buc-ee’s.

The USA is 40 times larger in area than the UK, and Americans have 908 cars per 1000 people to the Brits’ 600 , so it figures that gas station culture is both massive and diverse in America. Recent conversations with friends about the cultural importance of major-roadside convenience stores like Wawa, Sheetz, and Buc-ee’s over the likes of 7-Eleven and ExtraMile (which dominate here in California, despite their inferiority) were truly educational.

That’s why when I saw Steve Svoboda’s viral IG Reel (140,000 views and counting) of his celebratory plan to run a marathon around and around a Springfield, Missouri Buc-ee’s, I had to know more.

“It's gonna be the first Buc-ee’s marathon, and I'm only gonna eat Buc-ee’s. It's gonna be crazy.”

Steve’s going to run a 0.37-mile loop 71 times on May 11th 2024 at Buc-ee’s in Springfield, MO. That’s the plan, and I heard all about it.

About Steve Svoboda, creator of The Buc-ee’s Gas Station Marathon

I spoke to Steve last week - on day 4707 of his run streak. He’ll hit 13 years of running at least one mile every day, and 5,000 days in June. Steve Svoboda likes to run.

He started running in middle school in Wisconsin “to get some basketball conditioning,” but it was in college in Minneapolis that he ran at night and started to truly enjoy his running practice.

His first marathon was in 2007, when somebody at Steve’s church asked if he wanted to join them running 26.2 miles for charity. He remembered his high school basketball coach telling him that all he did was “coach basketball and run marathons,” so Steve agreed. He hit the famous Wall at about mile 12, but pledged to run it again the following year. He improved his time by over an hour.

One thing led to another and he fell in love with triathlons, to the point where he created his own solo Ironman event when living in a New York apartment at the start of the pandemic. Sure, he was on a stationary bike and in his friend’s outdoor pool, but the fun part? He ran the marathon segment on a circle he drew in the basement.

When I ask him about what he does to overcome the difficult moments he encounters while running, he slows down for a moment of thought.

“You know when you're on a longer run - a marathon, an ultra - and you hit that point where you don't want to keep going? I actually like that feeling because I'm forced to dig deeper. You have so much more in you once you hit that point, but it's just a matter of continuing to push through and having that discomfort.”

Steve Svoboda likes to run. He likes to have fun, but he’s also not afraid of the difficult side of this sport.

So why Buc-ee’s??

As you might imagine, Steve has previous experience with gas stations. He ran a 280-mile relay race from New York to Washington, D.C. one time, for instance, and hit up a couple of Wawas en route. Then, while a New Jersey resident, he cycled the 210 miles from the top of Jersey to the bottom in one day, and got supplies for the last leg from another Wawa. His journey with Buc-ee’s started soon after that, and is a more personal affair.

“We moved to Texas, and Buc-ee’s is just huge in Texas: picture a hundred gas pumps; a quarter-mile of gas pumps. About 25 minutes from where we lived was a Buc-ee’s gas station. We took our kids and they thought it was the coolest thing ever. We went every two or three weeks.”

“Then we moved up to Missouri, and as we're moving we find out there's a new Buc-ee's opening 15 minutes away from where we live. The kids were just so pumped.”

At 53,00 ft² (4,900 m²), the Springfield, MO Buc-ee’s has over 38,000 fans on Facebook, which is over 20% of the 170,000 population of the city. Talking about the opening of a new business, Springfield mayor Ken McClure said he couldn’t remember excitement like it. People were talking about camping outside in order to be the first customer. All 120 gas pumps of the Texan company’s 47th outpost were very welcome beyond Steve’s family, which is a running family.

“One of the things I'm most excited about is involving my kids. My son ran his first mile when he was four. My daughter saw him do that, so she wanted to do her first mile when she was two, and my youngest son - he’s two and a half - did his first mile just a few months ago.”

“The kids love Buc-ee’s, and they enjoy running, so it's gonna be fun involving all three.”

There’s so much to the Buc-ee’s folklore, though. Just how the Costco $1.50 hot dog story is embedded into the Things That Feel Good category, how people visit IKEA for the meatballs not the furniture, and Wawa celebrates its range of custom sandwiches with Hoagiefest every summer, Buc-ee’s is often described as the “Disneyland of gas stations,” due to its oasis-like status, but - controversially - Buc-ee’s doesn’t actually allow 18-wheeler trucks on its properties. It’s a place optimized for passenger vehicles. It’s a place for families and individuals on a journey to somewhere. It’s kind of a cult - a cult with barbecue and nice bathrooms.

A selection of headlines from articles about Buc-ee’s.

After driving hundreds of miles, happening upon the comfortable and familiar chain-specific goods you can find in a Buc-ee’s feels amazing. (As far as I can tell.) It’s a phenomenon that is documented and investigated very thoroughly across the internet, from Reddit to Business Insider, and I’ve taken great pleasure in reading it all.

Fueled by Buc-ee’s food… Got gas?

There have been some interesting moments recently surrounding what goes in (and comes out) of runners while we’re running.

When Jasmin Paris completed the Barkley Marathon, there was a photo where she was drinking a Coca-Cola. Of course someone left a negative comment about nutrition. Then the ‘locked-in’ Instagram superstar, Davis Clarke lost control of his bowels while running a 2:56 in the Boston Marathon. That he proudly documented it all in a video straight after the race was an impressive level of transparency.

What’s Steve’s nutritional plan at the Buc-ee’s Gas Station Marathon? Will he be counting his macros? Well, in December, he ran a 100-mile ultramarathon and the kind offer of a double cheeseburger halfway through the race opened his eyes to needing to eat actual food while running.

“I'm gonna listen to my body, but I'm gonna try to eat as many different types of Buc-ee’s food as my body will allow me to. When I roll up, I'm gonna get their breakfast burrito and their breakfast potatoes. I'm gonna eat that before I even start. From there, I'm basically just gonna continue eating a whole lot of other things.”

Steve’s Top 5 Buc-ee’s bites

Brisket sandwich
Beef Jerky
Banana Pudding
Homemade potato chips
Beaver Nuggets

The final one is a sweetened corn puff snack, FYI, and Steve also talks about their fudge, cotton candy, and roasted pecans and cashews, but can a gas station brisket sandwich really be that good?

“A part of it is you're just not expecting a place like that to have good food. You're expecting it to maybe be okay, and all of a sudden it's way better than you thought. Is there better? Yeah. At a gas station? No.”

A Buc-ee’s billboard saying POTTY LIKE A ROCKSTAR - it's a play on words for PARTY LIKE A ROCKSTAR — A Buc-ee’s billboard that’s a play on words.

How about relief, though? While it’s still an unsanctioned race, there will be no need for porta-potties on the 0.37-mile (600m) loop.

“One of the things about Buc-ee’s is they have some funny billboards. They try to draw people in. One of the Billboards says, ‘Ain't no potty like a Buc-ee's potty,’ and they’re some of the cleanest bathrooms you will ever find.”

There’s a lot to be said for using economies of scale to improve a business. Buc-ee’s can take as much pride in the cleanliness and abundance of their bathrooms, but with so many people passing through the facility and buying food, I suspect they could simply afford to raise the quality of the food. It’s a rare case of a profitable company using their popularity to make increasingly good products. That’s something to celebrate in and of itself.

What are Steve’s goals with the Buc-ee’s Marathon?

“I'm a pastor. I enjoy raising money for causes and so when this got some views, I thought maybe there's a way that we can impact people in Springfield that are homeless and are in need of food.”

“Helping people is a part of my DNA. I love building a common ground, and realizing that we all walk through highs and lows in life. I enjoy walking with people through the highs and through the lows and helping them as best as I can.”

Steve is unsure whether it’s a GoFundMe situation or whether Buc-ee’s themselves will formally enter the conversation to play a big role in the local community, but Steve has consistently built fun moments around running for the greater good. This time? He just wants Buc-ee’s to get on board.

“They could have so much fun with it. They’ve already got an awesome mascot. Why not just get him out there and run a lap or two? They could set one day a year as Buc-ee’s Marathon day and a percentage of the day’s proceeds goes to feed those that are in need in each location.”

Building the Buc-ee’s Gas Station Marathon event around Steve’s fantastic idea is certainly an easy opportunity for Buc-ee’s to extend the goodwill of its patrons even further. Either way, you can be sure that this isn’t the last way Steve Svoboda will be helping his community.

I’d personally love to join Steve for a few 0.37-mile laps next week but he’s 1,600 miles away. While driving from L.A. to Springfield sure would be one heck of a story to bond over, I think I have to settle for staying updated via Steve’s Instagram updates.

Maybe I’ll get a brisket sandwich for lunch that day.

Ways to make running suck less covered today

Invent new races
Learn about refueling
Take your family for a run
Raise money for those in need of it
Run around your favorite gas station
When it sucks, lean into the discomfort - don’t deny it exists

Running Sucks Haiku of the Week

Meeting more writers
Writers who like running, too
It’s a lovely thing

I started running and writing at around the same time - high school. Being paid to write about music meant I graduated university without debt (it was a different, cheaper time). As I became a full-time music journalist, running became my hour-long silent escape from music. I still don’t listen to anything while I run.

This here publication is the first time I’ve truly combined running and writing - it’s my first foray into any kind of sports journalism - and I am absolutely loving how not-unique I am. There are like-minded people as far as the eye can see, and there aways seems to be another one coming over the hill towards me. It’s a beautiful little community of creativity.

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