One-on-One with Scott Jurek
From Vegetarian Times; October 2008
A vegan diet fuels this endurance athlete’s wins BY TRACEY PEPPPER
One of the most accomplished ultramarathon runners alive, Scott Jurek, 34, has dominated this intense sport, in which athletes complete 100-plus-mile runs fighting grueling altitudes and terrain, by winning some of the world’s toughest foot races, including the 100-Mile Western States Endurance Run seven times in a row, the 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon (twice), and the 152-mile Spartathlon in Greece (twice). And he’s done it all on a vegan diet. This year, Jurek, who is also a licensed physical therapist and trail advocate, will compete in the 100-mile Ultra Trail Tour du Mont-Blanc in Chamonix, France, defend his title in the Spartathlon, and take on the World Cup 24-Hour ultramarathon in Seoul, Korea, in October, for the first time.
What initially inspired your love of running?
I grew up in a family that hunted and fished and spent time a lot of time outdoors. I got into Nordic ski-racing in high school and I would do three-hour runs on the trails to get ready for the winter season. Then a friend of mine, who had just run his first 50-miler, said, “You’ve got to try this out.” I signed up for my first road marathon and a month later did my first 50-miler. It just kind of took off from there. It combines my love for being in the mountains and the woods with challenging myself athletically.
What is the most grueling race you’ve competed in?
It’s probably a toss-up between the 100-Mile Hardrock Endurance Run and the Spartathlon. Hardrock [in which Jurek holds the course record] is just an insanely tough race because of the altitude. It’s like running and breathing through a straw. Not only are you sucking wind, you’re also traversing rocky, snow-covered terrain. Spartathlon is grueling in a different way because it’s so long: 153 miles on pavement, and it’s usually hot in the Greek countryside.
What motivates you to take on such extreme challenges?
Ideally I think the goal is to reach that state where nothing else matters. I’m so focused on the one simple task of putting one foot in front of the other. Though my body is saying, “It’s too hot, it’s too cold, it’s too hard,” there’s a meditative aspect to the sport. The extreme environments allow for that inner focus to be much more sharpened.
You’ve been a vegan since 1999. What led you to make that choice?
Initially the main reason was for long-term health. I was inspired after reading Dr. Andrew Weil’s books Spontaneous Healing and 8 Weeks to Optimum Health. Prior to that I ate McDonald’s a couple of times a week. But as an athlete, who was also attending physical therapy school, I thought there were definitely ways I could change my diet. I became a vegan after reading [former cattle rancher-turned-vegetarian and food-safety activist] Howard Lyman’s book Mad Cowboy. After learning about the environmental impact of the dairy industry, I decided to take the full plunge into veganism.
Do you have any tips for athletes who are thinking about going vegetarian or vegan?
Don’t be afraid to transition slowly. With new vegetarians, the tendency is just to eliminate, so make sure that you’re introducing new foods and replacements for what you were eating on a non-vegetarian diet. The biggest mistake a lot of athletes make is that they just don’t eat enough, then they think “I was so low-energy, I had to have meat.”
How has being a vegan affected your performance as a runner?
I noticed changes in my body’s ability to bounce back after hard workouts. It forced me to look at my diet and how I was balancing my proteins and carbohydrates. It got me eating more whole foods, and because of that, my muscles don’t get as sore and tired. I can complete my workouts and do back-to-back days, which is important with ultra-marathoning. You do two hard days in a row to simulate what it’s like to be at the 80th mile of a 100-mile race. I’ve spoken to fellow vegetarians who went back to eating meat because they felt like they weren’t as strong. But many people just don’t balance out their diets properly and end up thinking they can’t do it. Or they get fed negativity from coaches or fellow athletes. It’s important that there are athletes like myself out there saying, “You can do this and you can do it right.”
Have coaches or fellow runners expressed skepticism about your diet?
I definitely had some people give me a hard time about it, but I was churning out top performances year after year, so it was hard to argue with me!
