Would You Run 735 Miles for Free Burritos?
How Jamil Coury used storytelling to punch 24x above his weight. I break it down and we ask Jamil himself.
It’s finally February, actually Groundhog Day as I write this. I saw a stat that the groundhog is right like 30% of the time which likely makes flipping a coin more accurate. I was thinking about how Groundhog Day has to be the dumbest thing in America but thanks to the news cycle the past 2 weeks it doesn’t even come close. I hope everyone is doing okay.
Later this week I’ll be dropping the first in a series I’m calling Guest Pace where I’ll talk with others within the industry about their brand, business or story. I’ve done a few of similar to this already but I’m formalizing them into a series. Some of these will be sponsored so I can monetize this thing but you can bet I’ll make it worthwhile and I’m counting on you to keep me honest.
By the way the tassels on the Hoka Speed Loafer were a hit. Those babies went on sale Friday and sold out immediately.
Now on with the show.
The Chipotle x Strava City Challenge
Throughout January, Jamil Coury and Kevin Russ battled it out in Tempe, Arizona for Local Legend status of a tiny two block segment of street. Whoever runs that Strava segment the most times in January wins free Chipotle for a year (actually 52 free entrees if you read the fine print). Chipotle ran this challenge in 25 cities this year.
So back and forth they ran for 31 days.
It’s a concept that is typical of the personality within the ultrarunning community - it’s quirky, difficult and seemingly pointless. So naturally, Jamil, the entrepreneurial storyteller, grabbed his DJI Osmo Pocket and decided to document it.
Here’s roughly how the story unfolded.
Jan 20 - Jamil posts the first Reel (above)
Jan 21 - Singletrack podcast episode drops an episode with Jamil talking about the Challenge among other things. Crafty planned promotion by Jamil?
Jan 22 - we meet Kevin, Jamil’s competition
Jan 23 - we learn that Jamil lost his lead to Kevin after his car gets towed
Jan 26 - Jamil regains his lead by running his second consecutive 50-mile day
Jan 27 - a filmmaker shows up and ramps up the content produced.
Jan 28 - Strava shares a reel and engagement skyrockets.
Jan 29 - Jamil faces an injury and loses his lead again.
Jan 30 - Jamil is on podcasts while running on the segment. Cameos start - Jeff Browning and Scott Jurek show up to crew. A photographer shows up also.
Jan 31 - Jamil puts in 130 miles over the last 30 hours to run 735 total miles for the month and heroically wins the challenge on his 40th birthday. He limps into the bar 30 mins before it closes to celebrate his bday and his win. Boom.
His efforts seemed to captivate a massive audience during an otherwise slow time in the sport. How big of an audience did it capture? Let’s look.
Here’s the data I pulled from the reels on Jamil’s IG profile as of Feb 2.
Instagram
Jamil generated a grand total of 925,000 total IG views (let alone impressions) across 12 days of content (as of Feb 2nd) - an average of 77k/day. 60% of those views came in the final 4 days as the audience grew and word spread.
Now I understand that IG works on an interest-based algorithm vs follower-based but this is the public data I have to work with so humor me on my point here. Jamil has “just” 50k followers on Instagram. Let’s use Hoka to give this some context. Hoka has 1.2M followers on IG and, over that same 12-day period, their reels each got between 45-130k views - an average of 83k and similar to the 77k Jamil created with his 50k followers.
Jamil gathered an audience size similar to that of an account with 24x the follower base.
24x
That’s a lot of created value. All by himself.
YouTube
Not to be forgotten is the work Jamil was doing simultaneously over on his Run Steep Get High YouTube channel. The YouTube films are a far more complete version and the platform gives this content a longer life than IG. His first video dropped on Jan 19 setting up the challenge and the competitors. At the time he would run and then spend hours editing each video among work and other things. His last YouTube video was on Jan 29th when he was justing running so much there was no longer time to edit. So far the Youtube films ranged from 6 to 20 mins and gathered a total of 200k views across the series with around 1,000 comments and 8,000 likes. He gained over 800 subscribers with a watch time of 24k hours.
He has two more YouTube episodes coming including one entitled “3 Days To Go” that will drop today, Feb 3rd, and then the finale episode still to come.
Again, ALL OF THIS BY HIMSELF.
The story is a hero’s journey. Jamil quickly surpasses his longest training week ever and enters unknown territory which hooks us. He faces injury and obstacles like having his car towed and losing a lot of time and money before the City of Tempe catches wind and gives him free parking. Jamil coins “Big Burrito” as the antagonist responsible for any bad luck moments. He has a supply bag stolen and then found again in a dumpster. We get nutrition run downs and plugs for the brands he works with. He uses an epic-sounding theme song that repeats throughout episodes. His rivalry with Kevin evolves into a great friendship as they battle for victory. Kevin begins to pull away with the lead before Jamil decides to buckle down and take the win with a final 130 mile push.
Pointless, maybe. But engaging storytelling? Absolutely.
Why did this work?
Here are my notes.
The carrot or reward is enticing enough to an ultrarunning audience but also embedded within the mainstream zeitgeist - free Chipotle for a whole year!
The format (and absurdity of it) is easy to understand for those within or outside the running community.
The month-long duration of the challenge levels the playing field. Just about everyone has obligations to work around. It becomes a game. Does athleticism win? Or just logistics and heart?
The segment itself is very short, easy, accessible and visible within Tempe. It also runs right past the Chipotle. Location, location, location.
It’s episodic. We have the time to get gradually sucked in and we keep coming back as it unfolds across 12 days.
Timing. The news cycle the past 2 weeks either made it all incredibly privileged or a welcomed distraction. That polarization helped it stand out (good or bad) to more people.
It had a promotion plan and garnered press (even if accidental). Singletrack kicked it off, Jamil was on other pods and took live questions WHILE RUNNING. Collab posts reached the audiences of Strava and City of Tempe. Jamil mentioned Chipotle also shared something but I couldn’t find it. Jamil’s competition, Kevin Russ, has 230k followers himself. Canadian Running covered the story. Then finally we had the cameo appearances pulling the audiences of Jurek (239k) and Browning (45k).
Most importantly, the storytelling is just on point. Without it this gets little to no attention. And it wasn’t even told over all 31 days - just the last 12. Jamil led the way here but look at the skyrocketing views once he focuses on running and a filmmaker starts shooting/editing multiple reels per day.
For brands I think the crux hinges on how you approach the restrictions that a physical segment creates.
If I live in Boulder I just don’t care about a segment in Boston so if I’m a brand I use this format to engage my target local markets, like Chipotle did. Throughout the story Jamil utilizes local businesses for coffee, food, wifi, physical therapy even a local street fair. He is recognized and congratulated by a Tempe police officer who is following the story. Think about even raising money for a local cause for added value to the community. All of this brings awareness when people say “What is he doing??? Well, he’s running the Chipotle Challenge!” If Chipotle can do this x 25 cities I’d imagine other brands could easily do it in a handful of cities if not more. If you’re a running brand (and I hear from a lot of you) that wants to create high awareness in, say, Boulder, run a challenge on a section of Pearl St. to draw in both the runners, non-runners and local businesses. Find a local content creator and let them run wild with it.
To make the story go more national (or international), however, you need characters like Jamil or Kevin Russ that have an existing national following and give people a reason to care. That’s the local/national difference. Without characters I’m not sure anyone cares about Tempe despite all 8 things listed above. Strava also shared TWO posts around the challenge in Atlanta and I didn’t catch wind of it until I looked to see if they had shared anything else around the other cities. One Atlanta post was a photo carousel and the other a sizzle vid - no storytelling or characters. That Atlanta sizzle on Strava’s IG has 39k views vs. 132k from the reel from Tempe. So if a national audience is your goal the story must have strong characters. This approach may work better for a creator, athlete or influencer model like Jamil executed.
Let’s Ask Jamil
I messaged Jamil and asked him what he thought made so many people from all over care enough to follow along and he gives a lesson in pure storytelling.
“I think the concept itself is pretty compelling, but I did my best to create the YouTube series in a fun, repeatable show format.
I made sure to have a good hook to lead things off and then had to work on character development, introducing the competition, and including Audio and graphics that was repeatable and helped the viewer stay connected and wanting more.
Each day as things happened even if off topic to the core goal of collecting segments I tried to capture them and weave them in to the story.
I got towed? Great drama to add. At some point people make emotional connection with the characters and become invested in what is happening and live for the unexpected drama to unfold around the next corner.
I really leaned into that as best I could.
I’ve watched a lot of YouTube and tried to model my series after other really huge YouTubers who have seen success.
Ryan Trahan’s penny series was one I had in mind that would be a good parallel for what I was going for.”
Then I asked about what he’d do different next time and he notes that it could have been better with more support.
I would have brought in an editor / videographer to offload as the challenge got more intense for me as a participant.
I also would have loved to have an editor take the full episodes and chop into bite size pieces to upload to my Instagram multiple times per day to broaden the reach. Like high quality instagram mini episodes that had the same punch as the full length YouTube’s. I wasn’t able to translate it in the same way with just my one instagram video per day but I had no more bandwidth
The engagement was the most exciting thing. So many comments and so many people invested. Was motivating not only as an athlete competing but also as a content creator to not miss a day and try to make the episodes better as we went.
I also should have had a better run and gun livestream setup and a dedicated person for that in the final couple of days. We could have done some long livestreams and likely gotten a ton of super chat donations.
What are your takeaways? Lessons? Do you love this? Hate it? What else could be told in this way?
If you enjoyed this please consider becoming a paid subscriber. I put hours into each article between 4-6 times per month. That equates to maybe 15 hours/month? At a subscription price of just $8/month that means I’m making very poor business choices! Your subscription would be massively appreciated 🤗.
Let's not forget that Jamil is highly charismatic to begin with. He has always been a natural.
Great breakdown of the key elements! 🙌
Loved this! I followed along all month, and this perfectly captures the entire experience.