I went to a hypnotherapist to get past my gag reflex.

0:00 Yasir I was in Men's Health, I was in Runner's World and Bicycling. There's this race called the tour de donut. I showed up. I ate 55 donuts, and I won the race. I absolutely have a target on my back. I hate to always dash their dreams, but, I mean, at some point, I'll stop.

0:17 Eva The internet wants you to know a little about everything.

0:19 Pamala A headline here, a trending topic there.

0:22 Eva Just enough to have an opinion.

0:24 Pamala But never enough to understand.

0:26 Eva This is, you know, too much.

0:27 Pamala A show about the opposite.

0:29 Eva The people who go all the way down the rabbit hole.

0:32 Pamala The collector, the overthinker, the obsessive.

0:36 Eva This is, you know, too much.

0:39 Yasir I'm Yasir Salem, and I know too much about eating donuts to win bike races.

0:43 Pamala Welcome to you Know Too Much. The show that teaches you everything you never knew. You needed to know about the people, passions and obsessions shaping our world.

0:51 Eva I'm even McCloskey.

0:53 Pamala And I'm Pamala Buzick Kim.

0:55 Eva And today we're talking about the surprising intersection between competitive eating and endurance sports with someone who truly knows way too much about both.

1:05 Pamala From bike races and ultramarathons to donut eating contests and the science of human performance. We're joined by athlete, adventurer and all around endurance expert Yasir Salem.

1:16 Yasir Thank you.

1:17 Eva By the end of this episode, we're all going to know way too much too. Hey, Yasir.

1:22 Yasir Hello. Thank you for having me on the show.

1:24 Pamala Yeah, absolutely. I'm. I'm going to be. Really? I have no idea. I've never heard of this in my life. I've heard of one. I've heard of the other. But not the combo. So can you just get us up to speed you, like really quickly? So you've done all your marathons and then also eating contest, and then there's something where both of them combine.

1:47 Pamala How? What?

1:48 Yasir Yeah yeah yeah. I mean there was a I didn't even know what they, what these donut races were before. So yeah, going back a little bit I started and running pretty late in life. I think my first marathon was in 2020 ten around there, the New York City Marathon. We did that for a little bit. Yeah, it was fantastic.

2:10 Yasir And in the kind of background I was starting to get really interested in competitive eating. You know, I saw it on TV and it it's the same age that the marathon did for me. So I think that was the first time. Really. Okay. These two things are kind of similar. It's just like I there's this big thing and I want to go and get it.

2:28 Yasir I failed miserably after, you know, first few times just practicing at home. I thought it was just a brute force thing, right where I could just sit down and eat a bunch of hot dogs. That's not the case. It's just like anything else you have to build up just like a marathon or. Yeah, you know speed, right?

2:46 Pamala Did you see, like, what were you like in Coney Island watching? Like Nathan's hot dog eating contest. You would see it on TV, like, what was the thing?

2:53 Yasir I was watching ESPN and I saw the 4th of July, Nathan's hot dog eating contest, and I thought, all I have to do is eat a bunch of hot dogs, and I could be on TV, and it was supposed to be a one and done thing, and I thought I could do that. I could just go eat a bunch of hot dogs and I could be there.

3:10 Eva Amazing.

3:12 Yasir After that first failure at home where I was like, wow, this is a lot harder than I thought. I couldn't give it up. And that's the same kind of drive that you need when you're when you're doing runs where, like, you know, you might not have a good day, but you're going to get up and do it again.

3:28 Yasir Pat bertoletti during my time. Those are the guys that won it. So I was like, I need to be number one, Will, how do I do that? Right? So I went and I was like, I'm a good enough bike rider and I'm a good enough eater. There must be a way for me to find a Venn diagram of a race where I, when I'm right in the middle, where you don't really get the best.

3:50 Yasir And I found it was.

3:52 Pamala And it.

3:52 Eva Existed. It already existed.

3:54 Yasir It existed. Yeah. And I was just. I was like, I'm going to clean up, you know, and and I did, you know, so there's this race called the tour de Donut in Illinois. It's been going on for at this point, about 28, 29 years. It's a spoof of the of the tour de France, France. Yeah, I showed up, I don't know, like 55 donuts and and I won the race.

4:18 Pamala Whoa. Okay, okay. Well, how how many things were you generally eating? But you obviously the chestnuts weren't getting to that level.

4:27 Yasir Right? Yeah. In the 30s. In the 30s? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

4:32 Pamala And you somebody questioned. Yeah. I can't believe you found this race that actually has both.

4:37 Yasir Right.

4:38 Eva And you won your first try.

4:41 Pamala Yeah. Amazing.

4:43 Yasir My first my first donut. My first tour. The donut. I won straight out immediately.

4:49 Pamala Yeah. Amazing. You have to eat the most donuts and also be the fastest.

4:53 Yasir Yeah. So this is the formula. So these are 32 to 36 mile races. There's more than one. There's one in Illinois. There's one in Ohio. There's one in Pennsylvania. But it's called the Donut Derby. In Pennsylvania. There's one in Austin, sort of smaller. But the three big ones are in those states. Right?

5:10 Pamala Amazing. That's crazy.

5:12 Yasir In essence, the person with with the shortest finishes, the race in the smallest amount of time wins the race. So let's say 36 miles. I think that's the Illinois one. You bike a third of the way. So about 12 miles get off. You leave your bike, you go eat a bunch of donuts, they tally them up, get back on the bike.

5:33 Yasir 12 more miles. Another donut. Stop. Eat more and then 12 more miles to the finish.

5:38 Pamala Got it. I mean, okay. The donuts. Yeah. Are they. Are they playing? Oh, frosted. Are they frosted? You. Seems like good dry like so just.

5:51 Yasir Very good question. Very good questions. You want that's the simplest you can get it. And the lightest also makes a big difference. So and I literally called the bakery I was like hey, can you do me a favor. Can you pull out one of your glazed donuts and weigh it for me? And there and that was so nice.

6:09 Yasir And they were like, oh my gosh, I didn't even have to explain it. But then I did. I was like, hey, listen, I'm doing this race and it makes a big deal. You know? It's a big difference if I know if it's off, buy it out. You know, I have, I have I have to know, like what's a realistic number in my head because I weigh, I weigh it all in.

6:25 Yasir I it's, you know, I need to know like, can I do 50 or can I do 60.

6:29 Eva Right. Yeah. Yeah.

6:31 Pamala What is happening to your body doing. Yeah. Oh must be losing their pants like.

6:37 Yasir Yeah. But body mind are in a struggle. A battle for like survival and, you know, questioning why I'm doing it. Like there's, it's more of a mental game at that point. Imagine you're in, you know, July, August heat in the middle of the US and bunch of cornfields. Yeah. And you're on your own, right. Like you might have a pack of no shops around you.

7:02 Yasir Yeah. No, no, it's very hot. Your stomach's full of sugar, you're amped up. Yeah, right. And you go through the whole thing, right? You're you go up, you're excited, and then the sugar crash eventually happens, and it's fairly quick, right? It's fairly fast. Like within 30 minutes to 40 minutes you're getting hit really hard. And then there's a crash right afterwards.

7:23 Yasir The main battle for me is not just the the fullness of my stomach. I can get over that, but it's the it's the struggle that's going on in my head. Like, what? Why am I doing this? What's the purpose? And that's changed over time, right?

7:35 Pamala Like what it was.

7:36 Yasir Why, yes. Very good. This is why I keep coming back. The wife at first was like, I'm going to win. This is fun. This is hilarious. You know, I was in men's health. I was in Runner's World and bicycling. That's a very that's very easy. That's true. That's very fun. Right. Like okay, but then what? Right. My, my why now is all of these have charities like really nice charities attached to them, whether it's blood cancer or helping kids after school to learn a skill like learning how to fix up bikes.

8:10 Yasir That's the donut derby in Pennsylvania. I can get behind that in in Illinois, said Boeing Employee Scholarship Fund. I played a part in like promoting this event, like by being in Bicycling and Runner's World and Men's Health. Like, you know, people saw this and they became legitimized and, and, and I, I, I would have found those races easier if I was in the but I had to do a pretty deep internet search.

8:35 Yasir Right. So like my why is now like, I'm happy to be a part of something fun and silly that also benefits some really good charities, you know?

8:46 Pamala Yeah. That's wonderful. Is there a crew like are you seeing the same? How how many of the you have a target on your back. Yeah. Yeah. Like how many how many of their are you that are running around in the same circuit of racing. Yeah.

8:59 Yasir I absolutely have a target on my back. And you know, you know that there is awareness when I do show up the race that I am there and, you know, it's it's there. I do get a yearly I'll get a text message or face or like an Instagram like DM like, hey, are you coming this year? And I only hear from these people like once a year, right?

9:24 Yasir It's like, yeah, I know what it is. I know that's the hope is like that. I don't show up. Right? And I'm that. I hate to always dash their dreams, but I mean, at some point I'll stop doing this. You know, I'm getting a bit older, but like, it's still fun for me. It's still there's still the why is still a good thing.

9:42 Yasir Right. But yeah. No absolutely I there is absolute target on my back at the race. Yeah.

9:47 Eva And look if they don't beat you then they're not really earning that gold medal as worthy as it is. Right. Like yeah yeah. Eat the best. How how good is that.

9:59 Pamala Do you feel like like because you're so saying like there's, there's a, there's a theme between, you know, ultra marathoners and then ultra eaters and they sort of have to have this same mentality. Do you still feel like your do you feel like you're just still purely a perfect 5050 mix of each, or do you have more of like, do you have more of a feeling for one group or the other?

10:21 Yasir I think where I'm when I'm at my best at my top performance, I'm just I'm 5050, like, you got to optimize them both as far as they can go. And have I peaked? Probably. Honestly, I probably peaked already in terms of where I was completely optimized on both. Yeah.

10:42 Pamala Like, what's the recovery on this type of thing?

10:46 Yasir With. Yeah, with sugar. With sugar and like very simple bread like that. It, it surprisingly runs through my system very quickly, meaning, it's more than just like, you know, running through my system. It's like there's the inflammation that I. Or I feel like, bloated, you know, my fingers are like, my face feels puffy. And, you know, obviously it just feel all around kind of sluggish.

11:12 Yasir It's about 2 or 3 days until I feel like completely okay again.

11:19 Pamala You don't have a gag reflex.

11:21 Yasir I actually went to a hypnotherapist to get me. I had a really terrible gag. Gag reflex. Yeah, for when I was first getting early on. Going back to my failures in hot dogs, I just couldn't. At some point, your body says, no, stop it. You know, like that's enough.

11:41 Pamala Yeah, yeah.

11:43 Yasir There's multiple there's multiple points along the journey where your body's like, no. And so, yeah. So I was it was stopping like right here, you know, and.

11:54 Eva It's got a disqualification if you vomit while you're eating.

11:58 Yasir 100%, you're.

11:59 Eva Just done for the whole race.

12:01 Yasir Yeah. And races or competitive eating like straight up competitive eating. Absolutely. It's that you're out, you know. And that's the way it should be. Right. Like right.

12:09 Eva That makes sense. Right. But I would like you know, it's interesting because I might vomit from marathon or.

12:17 Pamala About from.

12:19 Eva Like, that combo of, like dehydration or what, you know. Yeah. I should throw up after a hard roller derby bout to.

12:26 Yasir Right.

12:26 Eva That's that would be an interesting factor, too, if you were feeling sick. Not from the donut consumption, but just from the excursion. I guess that's another area where you need to get better and train so quickly was, yeah.

12:44 Yasir I got a hypnotherapist to specifically get me over my gag reflex, and that's what actually unlocked my ability to actually go and eat more, because I was hitting a like a wall right around 20.5 hot dogs. And that was my first qualifier, met at Met Stadium, and I immediately got sick after afterwards. And I was just like, my body was like, no, no, no, get it out.

13:09 Yasir Yeah, you're past the point. I was, I was I felt awful, you know. Yeah. And I still feel awful just to be barely aware Sophie off of the race. But I know how to work through it. I know how to control it. I know how to adjust and make my body, like, calm down and, like, calm myself. But even a therapist was able to get me past the initial like, no point, which is right here for me.

13:34 Pamala So there's a mental, also a mental event 200%.

13:39 Yasir Oh yeah.

13:41 Pamala So interesting. Who's come the like, who's come the in the donut, you know toward a donut and the donut triple Crown who has come the closest to beating you? And has it been consistently the same person?

13:54 Yasir Yeah. There's this guy named Kyle Tanner. We have an agreement, right? Like we just kind of. He likes the shorter races. He's more of a sprinter. So there's there there's the standard 32 mile race. And I think he does the sprint which is 16 miles. They both have trophies right. Like but.

14:11 Pamala 15 miles.

14:12 Yasir So so he feels much better at the shorter race which means there's only like one donut stop versus two donut stops.

14:20 Pamala Right.

14:21 Yasir So he is he is definitely a force to contend with. Randy Santel. He's a pretty big YouTube star. He's more what we call a picnic eater. So he'll sit down and not dip anything in water. Picnic eater also means like you're using night court or you're you're eating food the way it should be. Know it's like, yeah, you can do that.

14:41 Yasir Yeah. Like picnic eating just is a type of competitive eating where your lap, you know, like purposely like grabbing stuff and shove it in your mouth or something, you know, Cookie Monster, right? But like, yeah, he can destroy me at eating, but like, when you put the two together, he got very, very close. And ultimately I just I'm out that when you.

15:00 Yasir We're not going to run each other over anything. But like, you know I'm trying to win. So so are they. I think that's really important for kids to learn as like like you can be friends and also be competitors. It's something I didn't do a lot of team sports as a kid, so it's a muscle that I had to learn how to flex and, like, you know, you can you you don't have to hate your competitor.

15:22 Yasir You don't have to beat them to the ground. Yeah. You know, but you have to be your best.

15:27 Pamala Yeah. You know, as we're starting to wrap up here, is there anything that you think that the public has a misconception about in this sport? Or is it anything that you would like to just relay that would take away somebody like stereotypes?

15:43 Yasir Yeah, I think competitive eating has a lot of more awareness, like be the pure competitive eating. And that's it's harder to kind of it's easier to say, oh, that's that's a lot of food. It's a waste of food and. Yeah I've had medals where like you know the, the wheels where we're donuts. But so I would just encourage people to see this in the spirit of fun.

16:07 Yasir It's. Yeah it's, it's a lot of food. Yes it's messy but you know there's, there's charity involved in that especially in the donut races. And it's all in good fun. And I you know, you know, we choose our vices and that's a vice I've chosen. I'm sure others have theirs.

16:24 Eva I love it. And you've found some some special community in it.

16:28 Yasir Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm very you know, we've developed these folks that are on the competitive, purely competitive eating side. I have friends that I will always call friends for life on the donut donut racing side of things. Same thing. You know, like we stay at each other's houses. We we visit each other, we check in on each other.

16:48 Yasir We're we're we're we're friends, you know. And that's that's my community.

16:53 Pamala It's beautiful. That's awesome. Well that's all for today's episode of you know too Much. A huge thank you to Yasir Salem for sharing his incredible insights into the endurance sports, competitive eating and what it really takes to push the limits of the human body. And honestly, now we know way too much.

17:12 Eva If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe, leave us a review and share it with someone who would love it. Explore more episodes and behind the scenes content at You Know Too Much stop media.

17:24 Pamala Follow us on Instagram and YouTube to keep the obsession going. Thank you so much, Yasir.

17:28 Yasir Thank you so much. It's been a lot of fun.

17:31 Eva Thank you. I'm going to go eat a donut right now.

17:33 Pamala I got so excited to go find a donut now.