Running News Daily

Runners and competitive hotdog eaters have more in common than you think

A closer look at the intersection between competitive eating and competitive running

When pondering the upper limit of how many hotdogs one person could possibly eat 10 minutes, James Smoliga, professor of physiology at High Point University in North Carolina, looked to running statistics for the answer. He told As It Happens host Nil Köksal on Thursday that running, specifically the trajectory of marathon world records, was a key inspiration for creating a mathematical formula to determine how many hotdogs a human can eat in 10 minutes.

At first glance, the two pursuits have little in common, but Smoliga explained to CBC that the principles are, in ways, quite similar. “When I was reading some of the literature and some of the mathematical models trying to estimate these types of things … it occurred to me that the patterns that we see in track-and-field type of athletes … are actually very similar to what I suspected the Coney Island hotdog eating contest would reveal.”

He says the rate at which people can consume hotdogs has increased with a similar trajectory to how quickly people can run marathons.

It’s a combination of talent and training

As with any sport, the ability to scarf down 75 hotdogs in 10 minutes (the current world record) or run a marathon in under two hours, is a combination of talent and training – you can’t accomplish either feat without both. Not just anyone gets to become Eliud Kipchoge when they grow up.

As many have noted, Kipchoge trains with precision and purpose that’s unmatched by almost any other runner in the world. The best hotdog eaters would need to train their stomachs in a similar manner.

The way runners hypothesized about the sub-two hour marathon, hotdog eaters are thinking about the 84-dog barrier. Right now, it’s nine hotdogs beyond the world record, but like in running, Smoliga believes people will rise to the occasion.

It was only one year ago that a sub-two hour marathon still sounded like science fiction. Now that two men (Kipchoge and Kenenisa Bekele) have run under 2:02 in a race, and Kipchoge has run a world’s best of 1:59 – the sub-two hour marathon will become more common for the most elite.

Canadian women’s running has seen a similar situation in the past two years, especially on the roads. The women’s half-marathon national record has changed hands three times since 2018 – first with Rachel Cliff, then Cliff lowered her own mark again, then Natasha Wodak took it and finally Andrea Seccafien ran the fastest of them all in February 2020.

In the Canadian women’s marathon, Cliff took the event to new heights in 2018 and by 2020, Malindi Elmore had lowered the mark by over two minutes again. The running world has seen a huge breakthrough in the past five years, and we’re hoping that the hotdog-eating world can do the same.