Marathoner Is Taking A Journey of the Sole

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Dean Karnazes had finished a marathon six hours before. He would run another in 12 hours. But as his 40-foot-long tour bus raced through central Michigan last week, Karnazes paced back and forth through a small kitchen. "I hate being stuck on here," he said. He bounced up and down. Then he started to jog in place.

Inactivity annoys Karnazes. Sitting down, well, he just doesn't do that. The 44-year-old from San Francisco has about one week left in what is, literally, a marathon tour: He's running 26.2 miles on 50 consecutive days, completing each marathon in a different state. Sunday, Karnazes will run the Marine Corps Marathon, probably finishing in about 3 hours 30 minutes. Then he'll climb back onto his bus and ride to another race in South Carolina.

Karnazes and a handful of corporate sponsors initially brainstormed the "Endurance 50" as a study in athletic stamina. How much mileage could one of the world's fittest athletes tolerate? Problem is, Karnazes hardly has approached any sort of physical breaking point. His revelations over the last two months have nothing to do with endurance.

In every city that Karnazes visits, dozens of runners wake up before 7 a.m. and pay to run with him. His assertion that no run is too exhausting has made him an inspiration to casual runners. Sometimes, Karnazes feels like a self-help guru. He's not quite sure how to handle that.

"Running is the easy part," Karnazes said last week during a 300-mile ride between marathons in Cleveland and Grand Rapids. "What's exhausting is the other stuff: the logistics, the travel, being so social all the time. I'd rather just run. In my perfect world, I'd tell the driver to pull over right now and let me run the rest of the way."

Karnazes had finished the marathon in Cleveland without any evidence of perspiration. Then, for three hours, he had stood behind a table, posing for pictures and signing autographs. His boundless energy seemed almost inexplicable, if not for the coaches and trainers who constantly monitored him. Physiologically, they explained, Karnazes was "not really straining himself."

Eight of the Endurance 50 events are live marathons -- like the Marine Corps race -- that Karnazes runs at his own brisk pace. The rest of the events are re-created marathons run on certified courses. For those marathons, Karnazes follows a police escort and invites people to pay $100 to run with him. The money goes to a youth fitness charity, and Karnazes runs slower -- usually finishing in a little over four hours -- so people can keep up with him.

Karnazes typically maintains about a heart rate of 108 beats per minute during a marathon, which is similar, he said, to what an average runner might experience during a five-kilometer race. More than 40 days and 1,000 miles into his event, Karnazes shows the cumulative muscle damage of a person who has just finished a single half-marathon.

"I feel about the same right now as I did on Day Two," Karnazes said. "I didn't expect to feel this good. But the truth is I'd be exercising for three or four hours each day anyway. Honestly, based on my body, I might just keep going and turn this into the Endurance 100."

Karnazes's quadriceps are shaped like massive, three-dimensional rectangles, and they ripple when he runs. He takes short, forceful steps, and each one might result in more damage to the concrete than to Karnazes's knees. With 4.8 percent body fat on his 5-foot-9, 159-pound frame, Karnazes's upper body is cut like that of a professional weightlifter. Sports Illustrated for Women magazine called his body the best in sports, and it's all yours if, in addition to running about 140 miles each week, you regularly lift weights, swim, mountain bike, snowboard and windsurf.

Because Karnazes burns about 3,000 calories per marathon, his daily diet looks like something out of a competitive eating training manual. He consumes, on average, 5,500 calories each day, and few of them are pleasant. His travel-along trainer, Jason Koop of Carmichael Training Systems, loads the tour bus with fresh food in almost every city. Karnazes "eats a lot of different things," Koop said, "but they all basically consist of vegetables, granola or salmon."

Karnazes needs to eat as many calories as he burns, which sometimes requires sacrificing good sense. He once ordered a full pizza and a cheesecake for delivery in the middle of a long jog and consumed them while running. During a 130-mile training run for the Endurance 50 this summer, Karnazes gave Koop a list of nutrients that his body lacked. A few minutes later, Koop handed Karnazes a mixed bowl of whole wheat crackers, peanut butter, roasted cashews, jelly, yogurt, crumbled granola bars and nutritional milkshake.