It took Kyle Larson 3 hours, 7 minutes, 54 seconds to win a 500-mile race at Talladega Superspeedway during the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series Chase presented by Mobil 1, a performance that proved pivotal in his run for a third championship.
Now, the driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet is preparing to spend more time than that covering 26 miles, 385 yards when he runs his first marathon on Dec. 6. He will compete in the California International Marathon running from Folsom to Sacramento.
On that training day, it was 12 miles of an easy pace for me in good weather,
“What brought it about … I’ve never been into running, and running frustrated me, but I had a couple of friends getting into it and just tried to commit myself to it,” Larson explained. “Once your body stops hurting all the time, and you learn to enjoy it and enjoy the process when you’re training, you want to go compete in a race. For me, getting to compete in Sacramento, where I was born and raised, is special, and to get to do it with my friends is going to be fun.”
So far, the longest training run Larson has completed measures 16 miles. Speaking on the morning of the end-of-season NASCAR Awards at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, he broke down the physical effort involved.
“On that training day, it was 12 miles of an easy pace for me in good weather,” Larson said. “It was about a nine-minute (per mile) pace, so your heart rate’s low. And then the final four miles, you crank it up to marathon pace. So, for me, that’s probably — like I said, in good weather — around like a 7:30 to 7:40 pace. So, yeah, it wasn’t too bad, but doing that pace for three-and-a-half hours is going to be challenging.”
While his previous offseasons have been packed with dirt racing in sprint cars and midgets, Larson aims to complete this foot race under 3 hours, 30 minutes. Thankfully, he will still be behind the wheel during the winter months, with scheduled appearances in both the Tulsa Shootout in late December and the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals in January.
