How I Burned 28,000 Calories in 2.5 Days (2 Weeks of Calories!)

As I wrote about last month, I was headed to Reunion Island deep in the Indian Ocean for what is called by the many who have done it and other races – the toughest 100 miler in the world. There are so many things from that trip (like all the flight reviews on various airlines, including the Air Mauritius A350 and aspects of the race itself) that I thought it would be easier to break out certain components in different posts. So, here is one of them – showing how I burned 2 weeks worth of calories in just 2.5 days!

How I Burned 28,000 Calories in Just 2.5 Days

The Race – Diagonale des Fous

According to the averages, it is said that an adult male burns about 2,000 – 2,450 calories per day. The number on the back of the food containers/boxes and in restaurants is all based on a diet of consuming 2,000 calories per day.

During the Grand Raid Diagonale des Fous, I burned more calories in that event than at any other time ever before! Burning calories is based on things like your weight and heart rate and duration of the exercise. So, for those numbers, I clocked in at 194 pounds as a 6’1″ male. While running, I burn around 140 calories per mile while walking would burn about 105 calories per mile.

This race was supposed to be 109 miles with 35,000 feet of elevation gain over the course. They made some adjustments so they said it would be 111 miles. Well, according the watches of myself, my friend, and many others, it actually ended up at around 117.5 miles. Whether that is the official distance or not, that was how far I ended up covering. Also, the elevation gain ended up over 36,000 feet of ascent.

This is the elevation profile over the distance in miles

My goal going in (even though all the experts in this race said not to set a goal as a first-timer on the course) was sub-50 hours. This would have been a very respectable finish time and would have qualified me for the Boston Marathon of 100 milers – the Western States 100.

Well, as I will detail in the race review post, things did not go as I anticipated! I pulled some tendons in my heel around mile 45 and got it checked by medical at the 50 mile aid station. They wrapped it up and told me I could give it a try so I did. 🙂

But, I knew at this point that I was going to hobble/hike the majority of the remainder of this race. Only 30% of the course is runnable anyway and I had already covered a lot of that. So, I knew it was about to be a looooong rest of the race!

The Calorie Burn

So, how did that get me to burn 28,000 calories in 2.5 days? The race took me almost 62 hours of running/walking/hiking/climbing and I covered 36,831 feet of elevation gain over the 117.5 miles. 

My average heart rate for the 61 hours was 126 beats per minute. Also, though we started at 40 feet above sea level, we spent quite a bit of time above 5,000 feet, going all the way up to 8,200 feet. Being at elevation causes more calories to be burned since the body is working harder to get oxygen and I spent a lot of time above that elevation mark.

One of the times above 5,000 feet – and above the clouds! Beautiful country!

During the 61 hours of the race, I slept a total of 35 minutes so that also meant that my body was working harder and burning more calories than if I had been sleeping for hours during the race.

Putting all of those things together, it added up to 28,000 calories in just 61 hours. The bad part about this was that I only consumed around 8,000 calories in that same space of time. That was definitely not the plan as I had a good fueling plan but I was not prepared for the food that was at the aid stations. My go-to food for ultramarathons (races longer than a marathon) are things like quesadillas, grilled cheese, ramen noodles, gummy bears, pizza, Pringles – all of that. The problem was that this race and its aid stations had none of this! 

There were three aid stations with chicken, rice, potatoes, and macaroni. No real flavor on any of that which was fine (because too much flavor can make stomach issues). The other things at the aid stations were small portions of fruit which I did eat but also cheese that had a very strong smell and flavor so I couldn’t take that down. Also, they had different bread stuff that was so chewy it made me throw it up for some reason (weird things happen with digestion during ultras!).

They had soup at a couple of aid stations but it was zero flavor and wasn’t that enjoyable so I only ate it to consume calories. I did eat like 9 gels with 120 calories per gel. I ate everything I could but it wasn’t enough to offset the calories I was burning.

I also drank about 10 gallons of water and other liquids (like coke) during the race which helped offset the about 6 gallons of sweat I lost. In the end, I was down 8 pounds from the 2.5 days of the race. This made it a lot of fun eating in business class on the flights home – I ate EVERYTHING possible! 🙂

Below are before and after pictures – you probably can see the difference :).

This is the before picture. I am on the left.

This is after the race – again, me on the left. Yeah, I’m dirty and tired!

I definitely do not suggest this as a weight loss program but now you know what it takes to burn 2 weeks of calories in just 2.5 days!

Did I mention how fun it is to try and replenish after that? Still working on it one month later. 🙂