Gary Johnson is running a distant third in this year’s presidential race, but pit the Libertarian’s athletic achievements against any current or past candidate, and it would be no contest.

The two-term New Mexico governor has completed 17 marathons, and his PR of 2 hours and 47 minutes blows away John Edwards’ 3:30 and George W. Bush’s 3:44 times. Others left in the dust include Mike Huckabee (4:33) and Al Gore (4:54), along with vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin (3:59) and Paul Ryan (4:01).

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No other major presidential candidate has ever completed an Ironman triathlon, according to Dan Berglund, the public relations manager for Ironman. But Johnson, 63, has finished four Ironman World Championship races in Hawaii, including an impressive 10:39 time in 1999.

Johnson has also scaled the highest mountains on all seven continents, including Mount Everest—on a broken leg that wasn’t fully healed.

All that experience will come in handy as Johnson attempts to make the most important climb of his life: up from his current 9 percent average in the national general election polls to 15 percent. That’s the mark he needs to secure a spot on the big debate stage with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump—Base Camp, in Everest terms.

But that summit just got a little tougher to scale. Last week the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe asked Johnson what he would do about the war-ton city of Aleppo, Syria if he was elected President—to which a puzzled Johnson replied, “What is Aleppo?”

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Though Men’s Health spoke to Johnson shortly before the MSNBC appearance, the public apology he issued following the flub falls in line with his philosophy on battling adversity.

“Athletics has taught me that it is all about putting one foot in front of the other,” Johnson says. “Life is about setbacks—meaning that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. You might as well plan on that. It’s how you deal with setbacks that ultimately determines success. I think so many people experience failure and crawl up in a ball and give up.”

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Johnson didn’t give up after his failed 2012 Presidential bid, when he garnered just 1 percent of the vote. Instead, he teamed up with former Massachusetts governor William Weld to campaign on both his business acumen—he built a construction outfit from scratch into a 1,000-employee, $38 million company—and fiscally conservative credentials, like cutting taxes 14 times while governor of New Mexico.

Nor did Johnson quit after a 2005 paragliding accident left him with multiple broken bones.

“Doctors said, ‘You’re going to have to give it up,’” says Johnson. “But six months after that accident, I bicycled from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Napa Valley.” (The ride lasted approximately 1,500 miles.)

With that kind of resume, Johnson couldn’t help but giggle when Trump’s doctor, Harold Bornstein, recently said the 70-year-old would be the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”

“I do get a chuckle when Donald Trump says he would be the fittest president of all time,” Johnson says. “Well, c’mon. That’s who I am. That’s my life.”

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Though Johnson has significantly curtailed his running after suffering frostbite on his toes post-Everest, he still tries to get in at least 6 hours of some athletic activity per week during election season—down from his usual 15 to 21 hours per week.

The North Dakota native also adheres to healthy eating habits. “I don’t do sugar, and I haven’t had a drink of alcohol in 29 years,” he says. “When you consider health and wellness, so much of it comes from what you eat. I always say ‘Your motor is only as good as the octane that you’re feeding it.’”

(Building your best body requires drive, sweat, and the right food. Fuel Your Fat-Burners With 101 Muscle Meals from Men’s Health.)

Johnson has used marijuana, though, to manage the pain after his 2005 paragliding accident. Not surprisingly, the socially liberal Johnson is a proponent of legalizing pot, and he is the highest—so to speak—polling presidential nominee to ever do so.

While at home in New Mexico, Johnson shares cooking duties with his fiancée, real estate agent Kate Prusack. An avid skier and road and mountain biker, she’s also his training partner on the slopes, roads, and trails.

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She’d better be, or else they’d hardly have time together these days.

“It’s a requirement, I would say,” says Prusack, who met Johnson on a group bike ride in 2008. “When he gets home from being on the road, that is what he wants to do. If I didn’t do that with him, I wouldn’t see him.”

Prusack, who has been engaged to Johnson since 2009—“It would be a White House wedding” if he gets elected, she says—is confident that her partner is the most active man to ever run for president.

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“George Bush, I know, rode a mountain bike,” Prusack says. “But he made a comment to Gary once that he and I actually ride mountain bikes in the mountains.”

If Johnson doesn’t score the keys to the Oval Office in November, he has a backup gig lined up: He’s planning to ride the Continental Divide and log more than 2,700 miles from Banff, Canada to Antelope Wells, New Mexico—the longest off-pavement cycling route in the world.

“I discovered a long time ago that being as fit as I could possibly be every day was something that made my life work,” says Johnson. “So I’m as fit as I can be every day of my life.”

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