Around 18 hours into the Desert Solstice Invitational on December 8, Camille Herron could feel her body and mind begin to shut down. With every step on the track, she pushed through one of the most impressive endurance tests out there–a 24-hour run with the aim to break 100-mile and 24-hour world records.

It was between 2 and 3 a.m. when she began to feel dizzy after eating energy gels at the Central High School’s track in Phoenix, Arizona. But Herron was ready for this moment. Her support team came prepared with the fuel she needed—a double decker taco from Taco Bell and a beer from Rogue Ales.

For a couple of laps, Herron chowed down while she walked around the track in the dark.

“When they gave me the taco and the beer...within 10 or 15 minutes, I started to feel better.”

“When they gave me the taco and the beer, it was pretty quick, within 10 or 15 minutes, I started to finally feel better. I felt like I had more whole energy to get back running,” Herron told Runner’s World.

Six hours after the midnight snack, she finished the race—and won it outright: She ran 162.9 miles in 24 hours, setting new 100-mile and 24-hour world records. She passed through the 100-mile mark on the track in a world record time of 13:25 (Herron already owns the overall 100-mile world record of 12:42, but she shattered the previous record on the track).

Herron ran more than 650 laps, with an average of an 8:40 mile pace for the entire 24 hours. It was the longest race Herron had ever done.



The performance added to her long list of accolades, which include a title at the 2017 Comrades Marathon—an 89K race in South Africa—and both the 50K and 100K crowns at the 2015 International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) World Championships.

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Winning isn’t new to Herron, and neither is fueling those performances with food that sits squarely in fast food territory.

“I’ve eaten Taco Bell before all of my world records, so I think it’s played a huge part in making me achieve these feats,” she said with a laugh. So it’s a good thing it’s close, too—she can see her local Taco Bell right from her house.

Since she started running track in high school, Herron has made Taco Bell a major part of her fueling strategy before, during, and after competitions. She ate tacos as a meal in between double and triple-race days on the track in high school, and then later in her running career, she continued eating the fast food for lunch on the day before her marathons.

These days as an ultrarunner, she sticks with Taco Bell for lunch and a tuna sandwich from Subway for dinner the day before every race—and fuels midrace with some tacos, too.

While she acknowledges that Taco Bell may not be ideal for all athletes, she’s found that the fast food chain works perfectly for her.

“For me, food is happiness and I love eating Taco Bell. That little bit of happiness, eating tasty food makes me run happy,” she said.

Now, she won’t have to worry about running out of her favorite race-day fuel.

After receiving word that Herron ate the double decker taco on the way to breaking the world record, Taco Bell sent her a gift package that included clothes, tube socks, beach towels, and a gift card.

With free Taco Bell to fuel her future races, Herron looks back on her accomplishment as a huge step for her mental strength.

“Every picture of me shows me smiling. I really had this whole joy with what I was doing, embracing how cool it was to be on the track and running for 24 hours,” she said, “…I still think I can get to 170 miles and become the first woman to achieve that.”

Taylor Dutch Taylor Dutch is a sports and fitness writer living in Chicago; a former NCAA track athlete, Taylor specializes in health, wellness, and endurance sports coverage.

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