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Rich Roll completed this year’s New York City Marathon shortly after turning 60.
The plant-powered endurance athlete and podcaster has been recovering from “a decade of debilitating back pain,” culminating in spinal fusion surgery in 2025.
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In August, Roll announced his intention to be “as fit as humanly possible” by his 60th birthday, and to participate in the New York City Marathon just over a week later. He said he wanted to treat the race as the “final conclusion” to his year of recovery.
During the marathon, Roll served as run support for US Army veteran Cedric King, a double above-the-knee amputee. Roll completed the race with a time of 6:05:30, and in a celebratory post described it as a “peak never-will-I-forget life experience.”
He added, “As a consequence of caution, I can’t say I was exactly ready for the NYC marathon, as my run training consisted of two weekly 5-mile run-walks. Nevertheless, I decided to give it a go. And I’m delighted I did. The spine did fine. And despite my lack of aerobic conditioning, my body held up long enough to cross the finish line.”
Before Roll started training for the marathon over the summer, the celebrated ultra-distance athlete had gone without running for about three and a half years.
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Who is Rich Roll?
Roll is best known for transforming his health in his 40s and going from being a self-professed “couch potato” to being named one of the 25 fittest men in the world by Men’s Fitness. A former elite Stanford swimmer, Roll wrote about his transformation in the book Finding Ultra and started the award-winning Rich Roll Podcast.
Roll went on to post top finishes at the Ultraman World Championships and completed the 2010 EPIC5 Challenge, made up of five Ironman-distance triathlons, even though he had never owned a bike. He has followed a vegan diet since 2006.
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