The Oregon section of the Pacific Crest Trail extends along 460 miles parallel to the coast, consisting of an elevation gain and loss of over 65,000 feet, more than twice the height of Mount Everest. Since 2015, the decade-long record for running the length of it sat at 8.5 days, averaging close to 55 miles per day. Early in 2026, Ben Dullum decided to train for this extensive run. Although Dullum had been a runner for over a decade, it was only during the pandemic while working as a physical therapist in the intensive care unit that he discovered his love for these longer runs. Covid took its toll on him; he handled many more corpses than he was prepared for and running helped him process the trauma.
“Something changed in me when I ran my first multi-day run,” he said. Dullum has run over 300 marathons, completed 100+ mile efforts over 30 times, and won the Oregon 200 twice, setting the course record both times. The Oregon section of the PCT would be his first attempt.
Below are excerpts from a recent podcast with Ben Dullum (quotes are abridged for print version):
The Oregon section of the Pacific Crest Trail extends 460 miles parallel to the coast, consisting of an elevation gain and loss of over 65,000 feet, more than twice the height of Mount Everest. Since 2015, the decade-long record for running the length of it sat at 8.5 days, averaging close to 55 miles per day.
Early in 2026, Ben Dullum decided to train for this extensive run. Although Dullum had been a runner for over a decade, it was only during the pandemic while working as a physical therapist in the intensive care unit that he discovered his love for these longer runs. Covid played its toll on him; he handled many more corpses than he was prepared for and running helped him process the trauma.
“Something changed in me when I ran my first multi-day run,” he siad. Dullum has run over 300 marathons, completed 100+ mile efforts over 30 times and won the Oregon 200 twice, setting the course record both times. The Oregon section of the PCT would be his first attempt.
Excerpts from the podcast with Ben Dullum are below (quotes are abridged for print version):
Ben Dullum: I always wanted to go south to north, never the opposite direction. And you’re looking at maps thinking, if the current record’s 55 miles a day, what are those chunks? Where do we stop? What’s the closest trailhead? How do we figure this out? I knew going into it the main goal was just have fun, be around friends, make this thing happen. But the very close second goal was breaking the record. Fifty-five miles a day is the current record. If I went further, what does that look like? So that was plotting it out that each day might be 70 miles. It’s further elevation, it’s further gaps. When do I see crew? How do I see crew? How do you plan for water, food, et cetera?
AM: There is a whole logistic component here.
BD: Yes, it’s big mileage every day, and it’s a lot of uncertainty. The weather might shift quick, you might run out of food, you might move slower than you thought you would, you might move faster than you thought you would. Something might come up. What’s our backup plan? We didn’t necessarily as a crew have backup plans. We just went for it. We’ll figure it out and we’ll adapt if we need to. Planning for the positive. But knowing that it was 460 miles, knowing that we were going to go 70-ish a day, knowing that I was OK with going into the night as much as I would need to get to the crew vehicle. You want to sleep, but I also didn’t know how much sleep was enough, how much was not enough. You’re playing with that in the moment, too.
AM: So how did the run go for you?
BD: Surprisingly well.
AM: I think that’d be an understatement. I was shocked when I read Andy’s [Academy West Breathing Performance] newsletter.
BD: Yeah, I’m still shocked to read the newsletter. It’s funny because you look at the record, you read the record, you have a form of confidence of knowing what I have done in my training such that that record seems feasible. But I didn’t go into that push being like, I’m going to crush this record. It was more, I think I have what it takes to beat this record. But I had no idea that I was going to break it by 59 hours. I was thinking I was going to come in by five to 10. I didn’t think it was going to be over two days.
AM: Fifty-nine hours is very significant.
BD: That was never on the mindset throughout.
AM: What wasn’t on your mindset? How did you achieve this feat?
BD: That’s a great question. I feel like training is a big piece of that answer. It’s the mindset in the moment, and I think the training on the forefront. When I locked in mentally that I was going to go for this thing, you do a series of tests, at least, or at least I did. What if I do 50 miles a day three days in a row? How does my body respond to that? Because if the answer is that went poorly and you can barely walk, that would be halfway through this FKT, fastest known time. So, if you can’t hold up for half of it, the full thing is probably not going to go well. I would put myself training-wise as aggressively as I could, days in a row, back-to-back, to just see how I responded and how long it took to recover. That was part of the effort of does this go well? Is this appropriate? Am I just dreamy excited about this record and it’s not feasible?
Dullum’s new record of the Oregon PCT crushes any doubt of infeasibility.
The Record in Numbers
- Distance run: 460 miles
- Elevation gain/loss: 65,000 feet
- Dullum’s New Record: 6 days, 1 hour, 40 minutes
- Previous Record broken by: 59 hours
- Total hours run: 140
- Total hours slept: 10
- Average daily mileage: 73 miles
- Average daily caloric intake: 6-10,000 calories
- Crew: Seven people
- Running Shoes: 4
Listen to the complete podcast with Ben Dullum here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1V5B55Zvi6euf1G2cC2Rrr?si=HAfuDxhbSVCkEQ1EGAmDjQ: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1V5B55Zvi6euf1G2cC2Rrr?si=HAfuDxhbSVCkEQ1EGAmDjQ
—Adriana Mariño is the producer and host of Bend into Balance. She is a board-certified functional medicine health & wellness coach and a graduate of the 200-hour yoga teacher training at Namaspa and loves to swim, ski, hike, bike and travel. Adriana can be reached at adrimarino@hotmail.com.
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