I didn't realize how much I had missed sports until I was looking at my phone on Saturday night and saw a Sports Illustrated writer tweeting about a hungover L.A. comedian who was gritting his teeth through an unsanctioned one-man marathon on zero training. Brooks Wheelan had bet a friend $500 that he could finish 26.2 miles in less than four hours and 33 minutes. It was, given the pandemic, a dumb idea: running a marathon is grueling even when you're well-prepared. The Twitter polls gave him a 25 percent chance of success. I was refreshing my phone like it was game seven of the NBA finals and I was stuck at my cousin’s wedding.

View more

After, I needed to know: Did Wheelan make it? Did the money change hands in the form of a giant check? We caught up with him to talk more about a truly average feat of athleticism in an exceptional time.

So you...ran a marathon? How did it even come up?

The longest I’d ever run continuously was 10 miles. I had just lost my job at SNL and I was so stressed out—I run to relieve stress. Now I run three miles, occasionally. Maybe nine miles a week.

But I was on my friend Nick Turner’s podcast Get Rich Nick, where he tries get-rich-quick schemes, for an episode on drunk bets. We were drunk, and I was like “I’ll run a marathon.” We bet $500. Then we weren’t sure if we were going to do it, or if it was all drunk talk, and then I just realized this is the one thing I can do right now: I’m not touching anybody. It’s all outside. We’ll just track it on Runkeeper on my phone.

We looked up the average time for someone who trained for eight weeks to make it a legitimate bet. It was, like, four and a half hours. Since I’m 33, we made it 4:33. We also realized that’s how fast Oprah could run it. That was my guiding light. [Ed: The average finish time of the New York City Marathon was 4:36, Oprah ran a 4:29 at the 1994 Marine Corps Marathon.]

I thought it'd be funny if I just trained for the marathon by doing whatever the last two days of a marathon program, and it said to rest on both days. So I was like, I got that. The goal was to not drink Friday and then go jogging.

But then I was on a walk with my girlfriend and our favorite wine store, Lou, was doing takeout wine. It was like, let's, you know, get some bottles of wine for later. And then we ended up drinking until like 1:30 or 2:00 Friday night cause we had like this wine that we dug and I'm an idiot.

One thing I will say: my girlfriend was pretty adamant that it's just really irresponsible if you have to go to a hospital doing this. And I was like: "100 percent agreed. If I feel in any way, shape or form my like I'm going to, like, tear an ACL, I will stop."

So then just you ran out of your house and turned around when you hit 13.1 miles?

I didn't have a path. I was just going to jog around until I hit 26.2 miles. I did it, and it wasn’t even that hard, in, I think, 4:16.

"It's the only money I made in March. Running marathons has oddly become my job."

I saw the videos, though! You were shuffling a little bit.

It hurt my joints more than anything. People were like, you're going to shit yourself or something. But no, it just hurt my hips and my knees. In the last six miles I was like, this sucks. And then I got to the point where I could've walked in the last six miles and still got my $500—but then I was like, I gotta beat Oprah. So I did hurry a little bit.

I ran that last six on the street I live on and I was not doing great and was hobbling along. I wanted to wear a sign that said, "I'm 22 miles in and this isn't normal me." I was nervous that people were going to see me and be like, “Oh my God, that guy's dying.” But it was honestly the nicest Saturday I’ve had in a long time.

My friend paid me, which was wonderful. I loved getting that money. I wanted him to make a big check for me, but he said that that costs a lot of money and he'd take it out of my winnings.

And while you were out there, it got picked up by running fans online.

I didn't know any of that 'cause I was running with my phone in my pocket! People thought I was cheating. I don't know anything about marathons, but I guess it would be annoying if some drunk asshole was like, "Yeah, I can do it too." I'm not saying I ran it fast at all. But if somebody drunk at a party said that standup wasn't hard and then turned out to be good at it? Walked on stage without any nerves? I'd be like, "Fuck that guy!"

What are you going to do with the money?

Honestly, if we weren't in a pandemic I would have taken everyone involved out for a fun, dumb dinner, but since I lost all my gigs and income for the foreseeable future, my plan is to just save it. It's the only money I made in March. Running marathons has oddly become my job.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.