Sure, vomiting is allowed. Discouraged but allowed, according to the bylaws of this ultramarathon.
Thirty-two miles of running and several thousand calories of greasy fast food are required for the event, so yes, you can be forgiven for puking. But Pepto-Bismol, Alka-Seltzer, Pepcid, Mylanta or any other medicinal stomach aids — banned.
Otherwise, the rules of the first-ever Taco Bell DC 50k were pretty simple, organizers Phil Hargis, 54, and Mike Wardian, 51, explained to the hundreds of participants shivering in below-freezing temperatures outside a Taco Bell in Old Town Alexandria on Saturday morning.
Each participant must run to nine Taco Bells scattered across Alexandria, Arlington, and the District. At each location, they must purchase and eat an item off the menu. Drinks don’t count.
And there’s no chance runners can squeeze through the 50 kilometers wolfing down a single taco at each stop. Per the rules, by the fourth Taco Bell stop, entrants must have eaten a Chalupa Supreme (340 calories) or a Crunch Wrap Supreme (530 calories). By the eighth stop, they must have downed a Burrito Supreme (390 calories) or Nachos Bell Grande (740 calories).
Receipts are required at the finish line. Runners have 11 hours to complete the course.
“Get your tacos ready!” Wardian said to the crowd minutes before the 8 a.m. start time. Then Wardian, a world-renowned runner and ultramarathoner, asked the crowd to raise their hands and repeat after him.
“I’m not going to run in the streets,” he said.
“I’m going to obey all the rules,” he said.
“I’m going to eat all my tacos and not cheat,” he said.
“I’m going to have the best day ever,” he said. The crowd repeated it, then erupted into cheers.
“On your mark. Get set. Eat!” Wardian and Hargis shouted.
Hundreds of jaws noshed into their first Taco Bell menu items, and the event kicked off.
After swallowing their last bites, the crowd began sprinting and strolling, jogging and walking toward the next Taco Bell five miles away.
Saturday’s event was modeled off Denver’s Taco Bell 50k, an annual October race famous in the world of ultramarathons. Ultramarathons often combine long-distance runs with additional challenges that can be everything from quirky to bizarre. Some ask participants to drink beer. Others ask participants to eat doughnuts.
Hargis and Wardian are longtime friends who have always enjoyed extreme tests of athletic endurance. When they heard about the Denver Taco Bell run, they decided to organize a local version on a whim. They expected the fast food challenge, billed as an “ultimate mix of endurance and spice,” to appeal to a small group of like-minded running extremists.
“When we come up with an idea, sometimes we get like 10 people, and that’s a good turnout,” Wardian said. “I thought this would be like that.” But within a day or so of posting about the event, hundreds of people had signed up, he said. Close to 1,000 runners were on the list by race day.
“I feel like people are looking for something different and this scratched that itch for them,” Wardian said.
Wardian is a marquee competitor in the running world who has racked up multiple first-place finishes in premier races such as the USA Track & Field 50 km and D.C.’s National Marathon. He’s also taken on long-haul runs across the United States and through the Sahara. Hargis has also competed in runs and marathons across the country.
The folks gathered at the Old Town starting line ran were a colorful display of oddball and athlete.
Some were marathon junkies looking for the next challenge. Others were like Ryan Stern, 40, a self-described “chaos monkey” who’s always looking for a good story to tell.
“I like eating Taco Bell. I do not run at all. But I can walk or run for 11 hours,” Stern said. “I’m going to finish because it’s funny and no one believes I’m going to finish. And I’m going to finish.”
“It’s a matter of principle now,” said Lex Lehr, 29, who met Stern that Saturday morning. Lehr said he was currently training with a coach for an upcoming marathon. “She told me this was a good opportunity to learn how to fuel during my run,” he said.
Stern was preparing to down a Crunch Wrap Supreme.
“My strategy, besides the two required items, is to eat the Spicy Potato Taco,” Lehr said. “Carb-heavy but not too greasy.”
“Ah,” Stern said. “Might switch to that!”
“We’re on a triathlon team, and we like to do dumb things,” said Julianna Falzon, 31, who was standing nearby with her friend Kevin Dai, 50.
“Big Taco Bell fan,” Falzon, 31, admitted. “Big fast food gal.”
Falzon said she had a beef soft taco already waiting in her bag. Dai also had a soft taco on him, and planned to go with soft tacos all day, outside the required items.
“The Burrito Supreme,” Dai said. “The fiber. That’s my biggest worry.”
After the 8 a.m. start time, Alex Fenn, 34, was one of the first runners to show up at the second Taco Bell.
“More hilly than I expected,” Fenn huffed between chomps of a soft taco. “Feeling good,” he said as he bolted away on foot.
Two stops and an hour or so later, at the run’s fourth stop, a Taco Bell in Arlington’s Court House neighborhood, Fenn admitted he was beginning to the feel the strain of the carbs — even as a regular ultramarathoner.
He was downing the required Crunch Wrap Supreme.
“Eh,” Fenn said mid-chew. “Meh”
After swallowing, his spirits rallied. “I will say this is much better than the Krispy Kreme Challenge,” Fenn said, referring to another popular race in which runners must eat doughnuts. Then he ran off.
For a short while after Fenn left, the Courthouse Taco Bell was empty. College football reruns played on a flat screen. Dog walkers and neighborhood joggers flitted by. But by 10:45, a handful, then dozens, then hundreds of Taco Bell 50k entrants suddenly filled the restaurant and sidewalk, cheering and chuffing down tacos and burritos.
Timothy Sullivan, 29; Kevin Mathieu, 29; and Sam Lancke, 31, were among them. All felt good at the fourth stop.
“We just ran our first 100 miler a couple months ago,” Sullivan said, fresh off a Cinnamon Twist order.
“So this will be a walk in the park,” Lancke said sarcastically, working on an order of Nacho Fries. “But we were eating tacos, so who knows.”
“I do Iron Man triathlons, which can get kind of intense and serious. I’m excited about this because it’s whimsical,” Sullivan said.
“What I love about ultras is it’s not about finishing first; it’s about just finishing and getting everyone over the finish line,” Mathieu said, adding that he had just finished a Spicy Potato Taco. He also filled up his running flask with Pepsi.
After the Arlington stop, the next destination took runners more than four miles over the Potomac River into the District. The Taco Bell at 14th Street NW in Columbia Heights was the first D.C. stop.
“Struggling,” Lancke admitted there. “But I’ll make it.”
Dozens of Target employees happened to be holding a protest right outside the Columbia Heights Taco Bell that day. The demonstration turned into a hip-hop concert. The sidewalk protest led at least one runner — Irvin Ray, 38 — to overshoot the Taco Bell by a mile before another runner told him he had gone too far.
Ray doubled back, but by then had softball-sized swelling on his legs, he said. Yet two stops later, at the penultimate location — the Taco Bell at D.C.’s Union Station — Ray said he was suddenly revived by the Burrito Supreme he was eating.
“This is giving me the sodium I need,” he said.
Ray said he had never run anything longer than a marathon. His wife’s social media popped up with the Denver Taco Bell run, and he said he would like to do it, but it was out West. Not much later, his wife told him about the D.C. event. “It was time then to put the burrito in the mouth,” he said.
At Union Station, Tommy Strei, 27, was feeling the miles and calories.
Strei had done the Marine Corps Marathon. He loved Taco Bell, and was wearing a Taco Bell bathrobe during the race — a “covid couch purchase,” he said. But 23 miles in with nearly nine miles to go to the finish line, it was hard going.
“Feeling pretty bad right now,” Strei said, finishing off a Cheesy Roll Up. “I just want to finish because I don’t want to eat any more Taco Bell.”
Back in Old Town, the first-place finisher came in a little after noon. Mike Smith, 43, a longtime competitive runner, had led the pack throughout the day.
He completed the race in four hours, 12 minutes and 35 seconds — the first of 429 finishers that day.
“I’ve got an iron stomach,” he said. His practice routine?
Every day after work he downed a happy-hour beer, then went running.
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