The owners of La Pizzeria in Stayner were pleasantly surprised this past summer, to learn that their pizza powers Ultra Marathon runner, Steve Bridson.
Most Friday nights, Steve or his wife would drop in to pick up a pizza and eventually, owners Jody Gillis and Londy Doran, found out why they were regulars.
Steve has a unique calorie intake strategy. He eats half a pizza or more (usually more), the night before one of his big races, then one piece every hour for about the first eight hours of the race. Something must be working because Steve is once again the Ontario Ultra Trail Race Series Champion, consecutively for the past three years. He’s won one time in the age 50-plus category and now twice for all ages.
The OUTRACE series consists of 11 races each season, spring to fall, and each race is 50 km or more.
The races are mainly on trails, through hilly forests and muddy terrain. This year, Steve ran three, “100 milers” (that’s a 162 km) in 24 hours (yes, he runs day and night, non-stop).
His total racing kilometres this year were just over 1,000 km. That equals a lot of pizza!
It also helped make him Ultra Champ of the North American “Trail Runner Magazine” series, for the past two years and a top contender this year.
Steve laughs when telling the pizza story as he’s something of an enigma on the race circuit, where most runners carefully eat hyper-healthy food, count calories and are generally aghast at the amount of pizza Steve can eat while running! He loves carbs and can’t get enough. Guess it’s understandable considering he burns an average of 13,000 calories in a 100-mile race!
What did Jody Gillis think when he heard that Steve is fuelled by his pizza? “I thought, who does that kind of thing? You’d think it’s impossible and it sounds kind of crazy, but it’s impressive!”
When asked what they think about him eating their pizza to power-up for a race, Jody and Londy jokingly replied, “What other choice is there?”
When questioned as to what their secret ingredients are, they said, “I guess just our passion for making good food”. Well, there’s no doubt something must be working!
Jody and Londy are just happy to be able to support a local guy doing something so big and kind of crazy and Steve is just happy to be eating their pizza! Mutual admiration.