Turkey Trot? Taco Trot!
This weekend's edition of the Taco Bell 50k in DC has the potential to be the largest ultra race of 2025
It wasn’t on my 2025 bingo card, but the most corporate possible Mexican-inspired fast food is becoming the unlikely emblem of ultrarunning.
The year started with a Strava challenge powered by Chipotle where the runner who completed a designated segment the most times in January won a year’s supply of their food. The sleeper hit, however, has been the Taco Bell 50k.
The eighth edition of the ultramarathon where you have to eat 10 Taco Bell items along the course took place in Denver, Colorado in October, but the concept has caught fire in 2025. A sister event took place in Minneapolis in May and now American ultrarunning legend Mike Wardian is bringing the event to Washington DC this coming weekend.
With a laundry list of accomplishments including being national 50k champion three times, running the 3200 miles across the USA in 2022, and holding 25 FKTs including the Appalachian Trail in 60 days a year ago, Mike Wardian is no stranger to the ludicrous. Indeed, Mike cites his own efforts in the Chipotle City Challenge as the inspiration for Jamil Coury to take part in and win outright in Tempe, Arizona.
Mike has amassed a legion of fans (almost 55,000 on Instagram) while taking on these challenges whether striving for personal achievement or raising money and awareness along the way. This Taco Bell 50k fits neatly into a third category of somewhat unhinged, community-based hedonism. Earlier this year, for instance, Mike took on the 6-12-18-24 challenge at Burning Man festival where you have 24 hours to run some miles, drink some beers, eat some donuts, and have some orgasms. I’m sorry, but if I have to know about this, you have to as well.
It makes sense that Mike saw the Taco Bell 50k and thought it looked cool. The logical next step was to chat to his friend and co-race director Phil Hargis and plan a route around DC, even if it was just them and “a couple other people.” When Mike wanted to run 100 miles this summer, he posted about it online and nine people joined.
Serious runners very reasonably want to be in the orbit of one of the most accomplished runners around. That’s the power of social media when harnessed by an influential runner. Add a little fun, a little folly, and a holiday weekend, however, and things get supercharged.
There are now over 1,000 people flying in from over 25 states who have signed up to run 50km around Washington DC while eating Taco Bell from nine different locations. In the absence of this year’s edition of the Marine Corps 50k, if there are 643 finishers, the Taco Bell DC 50k could end up holding the title of biggest 50k ultra race in the United States
Runners have 11 hours to complete the course, and they have to eat one item at each location, with a couple of mandatory menu items to ensure it remains as challenging as possible. The rules are loose enough to accommodate dietary requirements, but firm enough to ensure mildly competitive fun.
“We’ve given them the rules and the route, and they’ve got to figure out how to get around.”
The restaurants have been informed so as to prepare them for an additional thousand Crunchwrap Supreme orders on a Saturday morning, but when Taco Bell HQ got in touch, Mike decided to stay fully independent.
“It’s funny because Taco Bell asked how they could help. We don’t want any help. We just want it to be the community’s thing.”
“If we let them have a say, it spoils the fun. We also want it to be free for people [beyond buying] the Taco Bell. There was a federal worker who said he couldn’t afford it so Phil and I are going to cover his food. We just want people to have fun.”
This is the spirit of the trail. It’s the idea of getting out into nature with a community of like-minded runners. When I ask Mike what he’s most hopeful for with the Taco Bell DC 50k, that ideology and desire for spontaneity comes through again.
“The cool thing is I think it’s going to give people a chance to really expand what they’re capable of. So many people are used to following the arrows and staying within the lines, but this is how you start doing bigger FKTs and adventures.”
“I did one where I ran from the Washington Monument in DC to the Washington Monument in Baltimore, and I want people to see they can just do this cool thing because they want to. They don’t need to do a race.”
While this is a race, and it’s based around one of the most recognizable processed food brands around, it’s a purposefully unsanctioned race that’s more an exercise in orienteering en masse – something that many will find to be a new challenge in and of itself – than a straightforward quest for a winner’s medal.
Mike laughs about “all the candy and soda at the aid stations” when I mention how regular people assume that ultrarunners are so healthy. Add fast food to the equation, and it becomes even more absurd. While he thought January’s burrito challenge was “pretty lame,” he agrees that the opportunity was there for Chipotle to step up and really embed themselves in the ultrarunning community.
Instead of supporting the emerging trail/ultra industry by sponsoring an existing race or even simply supplying food at an aid station, they instead slipped immediately back into corporate nothingness. A missed opportunity, perhaps, but maybe Taco Bell will step up.
While accepting that the Taco Bell menu presents a unique difficulty in this race, Mike definitely sees the benefits of the restaurants on the course.
“The Taco Bell is going to be better than a burrito that’s been sitting out at an aid station for six hours.”
How about Taco Bell that’s been sitting out at an aid station for six hours, though? Hmmm, maybe not.
Links
The Taco Bell 50k (Denver original)
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Thanks for reading,
Raz x
Thanks — I didn't know this was a thing... Now I understand my son's recent Strava post — he and friends just ran the "First Annual Manhattan Beach Taco Bell 10k"... (Stop 1 - Taco Bell Hawthorne/169th, Stop 2 - Taco Bell Rindge/Artesia, Stop 3 - Taco Bell Sepulveda/3rd).
Rules:
- you MUST eat something off the menu at each stop
- you MUST drink a 32oz Baja Blast at some point
“It makes sense that Mike saw the Taco Bell 50k and thought it looked cool.” Yep. This has Mike written all over it.