On the Run

How Many Miles Joey Chestnut Would Have to Run to Burn the Calories from the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest

a large pile of hot dogs
Written by Charlie

Today was the classic Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating contest and Joey Chestnut again emerged as the winner in the men‘s category. With 71 hot dogs eaten, here is how many miles it would take to run that off!

July 4th – in the US, that is the day of the celebration of the declaration of our independence, hamburgers, hot dogs, apple pie, games, races, and Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island.

How Many Miles the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Champion Would Have to Run to Burn Those Calories

In 10 minutes, contestants have to see how many of Nathan’s famous hot dogs and buns they can consume – and keep down. For many years, the champion has been Joey Chestnut, an absolute force in the world of championship eating.

This year for 2019, the winner was Joey Chestnut again (on the women’s side, it was Miki Sudo again with 31 hot dogs and buns). To win, he consumed a staggering 71 hot dogs and buns in the allotted 10 minutes (three less than his record from last year). That earned him $10,000 for his efforts. For 2018, he had said that he only had a protein shake two days before, he fasted the day before, and then he absolutely demolished 74 hot dogs.

Being that I talk about running here and running burns, I thought it would be interesting to see how many miles he would need to run to burn up the calories consumed in that space of 10 minutes.

How Many Miles It Would Take to Burn the Calories from 71 Hot Dogs

While Joey Chestnut has said before that he does do a bit of running, I doubt he does this much! Here are the numbers to see how many miles he would need to run to burn off the hot dogs from the 2019 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. These numbers are approximate based on nutritional information gained online regarding the hot dogs and buns as well as the weight and pace of Joey.

  • 280 calories per hot dog and bun
  • 71 hot dogs eaten
  • He weighs about 215 pounds
  • An average pace of 10 minutes per mile would yield 167 calories per mile
  • That works together for a total of roughly 119 miles

For just 10 minutes of eating, if he kept all those down, it would take almost 190 miles of running to burn off all those calories! Wow! Of course, I am not saying he should run that many miles to burn those calories! After all, this guy does this for a living and maintains a pretty good weight so he has it figured out! I just thought it would be interesting to see how many miles it would take to run off that many hot dogs.

On that note, did anyone head out for one of the hundreds of races around the US this morning? July 4th races are some of my favorites!

Featured image from Nathan’s Hot Dog website

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About the author

Charlie

Charlie has been an avid traveler and runner for many years. He has run in marathons around the world for less than it would cost to travel to the next town - all as a result of collecting and using miles and points. Over the years, he has flown hundreds of thousands of miles and collected millions of miles and points.
Now he uses this experience and knowledge to help others through Running with Miles.