Emmanuel Dzotsi
Act One, "I Would Run 500 Miles." Or as I would say, "I Would Run 500 Miles and I Would Run 500 More, Just to Be the Man Who Ran 1,000 Miles For a Burrito Bowl."
So this first story on today's show is about a rivalry that started over, of all things, burritos. I have this friend from college named Blake. He's one of my favorite people. Really nice, generous guy. He's a massive runner. He's done several marathons, an Ironman. This dude runs more than anybody I know.
Blake
I'm sure I've told you, I've been doing a run streak for over seven years where I haven't missed a day.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Wait. What, what, what? Wait. You did not tell me that information. You haven't missed a run in seven years?
Blake
Yeah. I've officially run probably a mile and a half or two miles in two airports on a layover.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Just to keep up your streak?
Blake
Like, in the airport, yeah. It's like, well, I don't really want to do it when I get home. So I guess I'm going to strap on some running shoes and run through this airport like a lunatic.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
That's just the kind of person Blake is. Like, once he's committed to something, he'll see it through, no matter how wild the challenge is. Like, when he was younger, he took part in wing eating and milk chugging contests. He watched the same movie over and over again for 24 straight hours just for the sake of winning a competition.
And recently, Blake told me about a running competition. And I have to say, it shocked me. It started off being quite silly, but Blake found himself getting sucked all the way in, just because of a rivalry unlike anything he's ever been a part of. It all started in January of this past year.
Blake
I was working from home, sitting on my couch, and my brother-in-law shot me an Instagram message talking about this challenge. And it says, Chipotle and Strava challenge six cities to get active for a chance to win free Lifestyle Bowls for a year.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Chipotle, the fast food restaurant, announced that they were starting this month-long running competition in a bunch of major cities. And the way it worked in DC, where Blake lived, is that you were challenged to run a route just two blocks long as many times as possible in a month. And the person who ran this route the most got a year's worth of free Chipotle.
The miles you did got logged and tracked on this running app, Strava. There was this real-time leaderboard tracking everyone's progress. Blake was intrigued.
Blake
At first I'm thinking, there's probably some nut jobs out here who are going to take this way too seriously. But I'm like, ah, it's only a mile and a half away. What if I just run there, do a couple laps? We'll see if anyone else is doing it. Maybe I'll just get an early lead. So I did that the first day, ran around the block--
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Sorry. I got to-- I got to stop, which is, I love that you went from being like, oh, there's probably some nut job out here that's going to take this way too seriously. And then you're like, oh, no, me. I'm the nut job.
Blake
Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
I-- I hate that you're right.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Do you even like Chipotle that much?
Blake
No. I mean, I do, but no.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Nevertheless, Blake decided to do it. The route for this challenge went right through downtown DC. Blake would run the two blocks, and then he'd just turn around and do this incredibly short route again, and again, and again, running back and forth like a dog with the zoomies to rack up as many miles as possible each day. And at first, Blake took it pretty easy. Like, the first day, he went out and ran about six miles. Nothing too crazy by his standards. Took the lead pretty much immediately.
About a week and a half in, Blake was still in the lead, but there was this small pack of guys hot on his tail. He figured out he could creep on their profiles if he clicked on their names on the leaderboard. And so he did just that, poring over their prior running histories and sort of sizing them up.
And based on what he saw, Blake was like, I can beat all of these guys, except for one guy. This one guy who's making his way up the leaderboard. Blake couldn't get much info on this guy. His profile was set to private. Totally anonymous.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Who did you think that guy was?
Blake
Yeah, I really had no idea. I was like, man, this guy's catching up to me or getting just right behind me. So I'm like, OK, really got to ramp it up.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
By the end of the third week of the competition, Blake had run over 300 miles. And he was thinking about this other guy more and more. As the days went on, this pattern emerged. You see, this other guy was a morning runner. Blake was an evening runner.
So every day Blake would wake up, open the app, and he'd see a notification about a run this other guy had just completed. He'd see this other guy's profile picture, just a picture of a dude in sunglasses blowing a giant bubblegum bubble that covered most of his face, just staring at him, along with a notification that this other dude had beaten him and just taken the lead.
They went back and forth and back and forth. If the other guy did eight miles, Blake would do nine. Every day, Blake would get off work and run just enough to beat the other guy. And then the other guy would wake up the next day and run just enough to beat Blake. They were having this sort of unspoken conversation, daring each other to up the ante and maintain it.
And then one day, Blake actually met the other guy. Another runner pointed him out to him. This other guy was short. He was fit, businesslike, a bit older than Blake. And now that Blake knew who his rival was, he looked out for him everywhere. And he would see him sometimes on the weekends.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
And would you guys, like, talk?
Blake
Yeah, we'd usually talk. I'd be like, how far are you running today? And he'd be kind of cute with it and be like, I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what it totals out to.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
When the other guy would ask Blake how far he was running, Blake found himself being just as secretive right back. The two of them just kept upping their mileage. On day 20, Blake ran 20 miles in one go. He was just putting so much strain on his body. His right knee started hurting him. He got a sinus infection.
In the final days, he was running twice a day just to get the miles in, more mentally tired, I think, than he'd ever been. One day, he ran straight into traffic and almost got hit by a car just because he felt too tired to actually stop. His wife, Lexi, was pretty worried about him. She actually came to Blake with an idea in his final days, a way for Blake and this other guy to just walk away from this whole thing.
Blake
My wife is like, you know, you can tell him if he wants to do a draw, anybody that ties gets the 52 free bowls.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Wait, really? That's actually really, really smart.
Blake
Yeah. But at this point, I'm like, no, I'm not backing out now. I'm like, I'm in this. Let's do it. Let's--
Emmanuel Dzotsi
That is so completely unhinged. And I completely, completely understand.
[LAUGHTER]
Blake
Yeah. I told her, I'm like, if he suggests it, I'll draw. But--
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Right. Right.
Blake
I'm not throwing that out there.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Wow. In that moment, did you see that guy as your nemesis?
Blake
Absolutely. It was me or him. It wasn't about the Chipotle at this point. I wanted to win.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
I gotta say, it's never about the Chipotle for people like Blake, hyper-competitive people. And I should know. Like, I'm one of them. It's sometimes hard for a lot of people to understand. But in some ways, what we're after is pretty simple. We're just constantly looking for a new way to prove ourselves and someone to measure up against. And Blake was now in a situation where he was going to get the grand test that he craved.
On the very last day of the competition, just like every morning, Blake wakes up to see that the other guy's just completed his morning run. Only this time, Blake and this other guy are in a dead tie. Blake's so relieved. He thought the other guy would have overtaken him. But instead, they're level. It's going to be a flat-out race. Whoever ran the most miles that day before midnight was going to win. And that's exactly what Blake planned to do.
He was going to get off work and just run as far as he could before midnight. All that stood between Blake and this last run of the competition was this event at work later that day, the event being a rocket launch to send supplies to astronauts on the International Space Station. Because, yeah, my old college friend is, in addition to being a 6'2" great runner with a wonderfully-intact hairline, an extremely successful aerospace engineer.
Anyways, the rocket launch meant that Blake, who normally worked from home near the Chipotle route, had to drive into an office an hour away from where he lived. So when the day ended, Blake got the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
Blake
I rush out of the office. I think my co-workers are wondering why I'm in such a panic hurry. I'm driving. I'm chugging, I think, Coca-Cola and putting down as much food as I can.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Ew. I'm sorry.
Blake
I need calories.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Why were you chugging co*ke?
Blake
I just wanted calories. I don't even really like co*ke.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
What else are you doing?
Blake
Changing clothes in the middle of-- yeah, I tried to do it mostly when it was safe at a stoplight and put it in park and take my shoe off real quick. There's no time to waste. I gotta get there, and I gotta start. Because who knows how long he's been out there.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Sure enough, when Blake shows up, the other guy is already out there running. Blake joins him. A final push for free Chipotle begins. And he has just six hours to run as many miles as he can. The two men run up and down the two-block route, back and forth, passing each other in opposite directions.
They don't actually know where they stand because the Strava app doesn't update you until you stop running. So as the hours pass, Blake's just looking at this other guy each time he runs by him, just trying to guess how far ahead he might be and how fast he's going.
Blake
I'm like, not intentionally matching his pace. But like, I kind of am, even though I'm not with him, we're running opposite of each other. And I'm looking at my heart rate. I'm like, oh, I need to slow down because I'm going for another three hours.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Eventually, Blake settles into a groove. And at one point, he notices something is up with this other runner. He keeps taking breaks.
Blake
He's like, I'm going to go take a rest at the car. And I'm like, oh, I think I finally broke him.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Blake didn't break the other guy. He comes back, starts running again. With 20 minutes to go, the two guys start practically sprinting, lap after lap after lap, just trying to leave it all out there. And then suddenly, just a few minutes before midnight, the other guy signals to Blake and stops running. He's done. Blake stops his run as well, and he looks down at his watch to check his own mileage. And he can't believe what he sees.
Blake
So I ran 38 miles.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
38? That was just the run you did after work that day, was 38 miles?
Blake
Yeah.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Wow. Had you run that far before in a single go?
Blake
No. Absolutely not. This was for Chipotle, right?
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Let me just say here, in case it's not obvious, that 38 miles in one day is a ludicrous amount. Like, it's a marathon plus a 1/2 marathon. Blake could literally have run all the way to Baltimore with that kind of distance.
And on top of the mileage, Blake gets a notification from Strava that he's gotten the lead back. He's 20 miles in front of the other guy. This race is over.
Blake
He shakes my hand, says he's heading off. He's got to call it. It's 11:50, 11:55. Something like that. We took a picture together. We said, great job. He's like, I appreciate you pushing me this month.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
The two men say goodbye and Blake just stands there smiling victoriously, watching the other guy walk away.
Blake
He headed to his car. He was sitting there for a second. And I'm like, I wonder what's going on? All of a sudden, I just start feeling my watch buzz. "Joah completed another run. Josh completed another run. Josh completed another run." I'm like, oh, no. And then all of a sudden, it hit me.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
The other guy, whose name I should finally tell you is Joshua, had outsmarted Blake. He'd found a way to hide his runs while still using the Strava app. And it was actually pretty simple. He'd worked out that if he just turned off the Bluetooth on his watch, disconnecting it from his phone, his runs wouldn't show up on Strava until he re-synced the devices.
So on the final day of the race, Joshua woke up early. He ran just enough to draw level with Blake, tricking him into a false sense of security. And then he turned off the Bluetooth on his phone and went on and racked up a bunch of miles throughout the day in secret. And when I say a bunch, I mean so many miles.
Like, if Blake could have run to Baltimore, Joshua could have run there and back. He ran 60 miles that day. And those breaks he took weren't because he was tired. That was him charging his watch, making sure he didn't lose those miles. And by the time Blake realized all of this, it was 11:59, too late for him to try and match what Joshua had done. The competition was over. He'd lost. Blake got got.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
How did you feel in that moment?
Blake
Uh, definitely broken. A little pissed off. A little bit disappointed in myself. Such a dipsh*t.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
To be fair to Blake, not everyone thought he was a dipsh*t.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
I got to say, that is so smart and also so underhanded. My god, dude.
Joshua
I know. Yeah, probably put a little bit too much thought into this, but that was-- that was the plan.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
This is Joshua, Blake's great rival. He's a dad, has three kids, lives in the suburbs outside of DC. Joshua actually brought his kids along to run with him from time to time. His whole family are a pretty competitive bunch, except for his teenage daughter, who, like Blake's wife, wanted him and Blake to settle for a draw. She just wanted to guarantee her free Chipotle.
But Joshua would not hear of it. He wanted to win, plain and simple. He just became too focused on the race, and Blake, for that matter.
Joshua
Blake would do this routine where he would get on his bicycle, record his bicycle ride over to the starting point, and then he would do that same ride back. So, in your head, you're like, OK, Blake lives south of the capital, probably has some job with the government in some form or fashion.
And then just-- that's when I start digging into those numbers. OK, what's your background here? How big of a runner are you? And you start seeing some of these monster runs and some quick times that he's had in the past. And that's what I thought I was going to see in that last day, were just some crazy numbers.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Right. You're like, I know what he's capable of. So I have to try and Blake-proof this.
Joshua
Exactly.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Joshua came up with his Blake-proof solution by accident. One day when he was running, his phone died. And he worried he'd completely lost that run. But later, when it got recharged and he reconnected it with his watch, those miles he'd done got uploaded to Strava as though there had been no interruption.
So that last day of the race, Joshua just did that again on purpose. He delayed uploading those runs until right after he shook Blake's hand and walked to his car. And when the deed was done, he didn't stop to look back at Blake's reaction. He just started driving home back to the burbs. He pulled into his driveway just in time to see Blake post a message of defeat to Strava.
Joshua
I know I ran in. I definitely woke up my daughters and just let them know, hey, I won. I won.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
At 1:00 in the morning?
Joshua
Yeah. And then everybody just went right back to sleep and said, shut up. So--
Emmanuel Dzotsi
So you're just alone in your house with no one to celebrate with?
Joshua
Right. I think I was just downstairs on the couch, going through the Strava data at that time, trying to wind down as well. Thinking like, OK, I got to get some sleep. Honestly, at that point, I think it was just a mixture of exhaustion and then just wondering, what is Blake doing right now?
Emmanuel Dzotsi
It struck me that, in this moment, Joshua couldn't untether himself from Blake. Because at the end of the day, the only person who'd gone through this with him, who understood it, was Blake. Who, like Joshua, was the only person awake in his house. He was sore, still thinking about the race, nursing a beer. They were suddenly without one another for the first real time in a month. It was kind of lonely.
The next day, all the results from Chipotle's competitions around the country came in. In LA, five people actually went for the draw that both Blake and Joshua had rejected. They all got Chipotle. They all got to win. Both Joshua and Blake felt a little regret about not having taken the draw, but not that much. They'd pushed each other so far, doubled down on their rivalries so much, that they ran the most miles out of anyone in the country. And their race was the closest.
Blake and Joshua had found the one thing every super competitive person secretly kind of wants. They found the one person who could stay with them all the way to the finish. Of all the Chipotles in all the towns in all the world-- well, you get the point.
Coming up, a battle of crossed wires and rhymes somehow more existential than Kendrick and Drake's rap beef. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.
