Welcome to Episode 26 of the Eat for Endurance Podcast, featuring elite ultrarunner and (mostly) vegan athlete, Mike Wardian.
If you haven’t heard of Mike, he’s a beast of an athlete and also one of the nicest, down-to-earth guys you’ll meet in the running world (and elsewhere). The number of back-to-back races, Fastest Known Times (FKTs), and other events that he participates in - and conquers - seemingly every week is superhuman. Most athletes would take a bit of a break after running (let alone winning) a major event - but not Mike! He’s always hungry for more, and it’s truly inspiring to watch.
Mike follows a mostly vegan diet (he eats eggs and honey), and I was so excited to get him on the show to hear more about how he fuels his amazing and diverse athletic accomplishments. We recorded on April 14th, about a week after he won the Quarantine Backyard ultra. If you’re not familiar with this event, it’s a last-person standing race (in this case, a virtual competition with runners around the world), and Mike won it running 262 miles in 63 hours around his neighborhood, just shy of the world record!!
Mike races pretty much every distance out there on both road and trail, and has made the podium for many half-marathons, marathons, 50k, 100k and 100 mile races. He has set a number of world records, including the fastest time for 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days, fastest marathon as Spider-man and Elvis, fastest time for the Abbott World Marathon Majors, fastest 50k on a treadmill (he is attempting this one again in early June), and fastest marathon pushing a jogging stroller. He also has set many FKTs around the world, including the Israeli National Trail in 2019. All in-person events have been cancelled, but that hasn’t stopped Mike - he’s been setting FKT after FKT on the trails near where he is based in Arlington, VA, and hopes to run across America later this year.
But what’s even more impressive is that he does ALL of this while working a full time job and with two kids. As you can imagine, he’s not getting all that much sleep, but somehow he is able to put in all those training hours and perform at an incredibly high level.
I hope you enjoy my chat with Mike - I certainly felt inspired after our interview, and love following along his adventures on social media, especially these past few months of quarantine.
Hope you are all continuing to stay safe and healthy! Thanks again, Mike, for taking the time to chat with me!
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