Jim Walmsley Training, Diet & Gear – UPDATED 2021

Jim Walmsley’s training took him to a 22nd placing at the latest Olympic Marathon Trials in Atlanta. With a 2:15:05 marathon time, he has the potential to be as good over the marathon distance as he is over the ultra distance.

We look over his training, diet, and some of the sessions that he has completed on route to winning the Western States Endurance Run and breaking the 50-mile world record.

 

Jim Walmsley Training – A Complete Guide

Since the update that Walmsley had started training for the Olympic Marathon Trials, he has gathered a lot of attention in the running world. More so in the road running community than just the ultra, and gathered a lot of interest around his training.

Jim Walmsley’s training is all uploaded to Strava, and he is open about all his mileage, splits and recovery, from all his sessions.

One of the most impressive things about Jim Walmsley’s training is his endurance ability. Most of his long endurance runs are run on trails, and in one, he covered 50 km with an average of 3:27 per km. That’s impressive in training, let alone doing so on trails.

You can tell by his volume of running that he is a classic fan of the Lydiard approach. Taking the high volume approach and running up to 175 miles (281.64 km) per week. This is a huge volume of running, even for world-class marathon runners, and just shows how great of an endurance athlete he is.

Walmsley doesn’t have the world-class speed of a track runner but has still run a respectable time of 3:48 over 1500m. Showing that he has a little speed in the legs over a shorter distance. But not enough to be competitive over distances shorter than the half-marathon.

Based on his ultra results and his 1:04.00 half-marathon in Houston, he could possibly produce a marathon time under the Olympic qualifying time.

While not fast enough to be competitive on the track, he still has a bit of leg speed for shorter distances. During his training for the Olympic marathon trials, Walmsley produced an insane double day on the track. This workout involved a 6 × 1,600 m at 11 a.m. and a 12 × 400 m in the afternoon. It shows the determination he has and the engine he has built.

Jim Walmsley Diet

While not you typical elite athlete, Jim Walmsley’s diet consists of eating pizza around 5 times per week for either lunch or dinner. So having a local sponsor (Pizzicletta) that provides him his pizzas every week seems like a good fit as a sponsor.

Although eating pizza every day is an unusual diet for anyone, let alone for an elite athlete. Eating pizza allows Walmsley to keep up with the calories needed with his running mileage.

Daily pizza is not the only strange thing about Jim Walmsley’s diet, he also indulges in beer more often than not. Luckily just like his daily intake of pizza, Mother Road Brewing Company provides him with unlimited beer to fuel his calorie needs.

For breakfast, he focuses on a staple diet of yogurt and granola every morning and even when traveling rarely deviates from this.

When you log the volume of miles Walmsley does, you think giving in to the occasional cravings is ok. He rarely eats sweets and sugar though and focuses mainly on the high-calorie content of pizza.

When he feels that he is becoming too light or skinny, he may drop in the occasional donuts and ice cream into his diet. But by occasional we mean a whole tub during an evening!

Breakfast
Granola, blueberries, and almond milk.

Lunch
He mostly snacks throughout the day. But Clif Bars are stable in his diet.

Dinner
Pizza is most common, but sometimes Thai food as well.

Is Jim Walmsley Vegan?

Although Jim Walmsley isn’t vegan, he follows a vegetarian diet but doesn’t talk about it too often. His vegetarian diet consists of mainly pizza, allowing him to get the calories needed for those mammoth 175-mile weeks of running.

His vegetarian breakfast consists of yogurt and granola each morning and has kept it this way for years. Paired with snacking on Clif Bars throughout the day he is able to keep up his calorie intake through a vegetarian diet.

What Shoes Does Jim Walmsley Wear?

With the volume of running Jim Walmsley does, it is no surprise he has a collection of shoes on the go. Sponsored by Hoka One One, below are the models of shoes he is currently using:

HOKA ONE ONE Speedgoat
HOKA ONE ONE Clifton
HOKA ONE ONE Challenger
HOKA ONE ONE Tracer
HOKA ONE ONE Innovation

The Tracer is the least used shoe of them all (at the time of writing) clocking 347.8 miles (559.73 km) of use. While the Speedgoat seems to be his shoe of choice, clocking in a huge 5,824.5 miles (9,373.62 km) running.

 

Jim Walmsley Net Worth

As an elite athlete and one of the best ultra-marathoners in the world, Jim Walmsley has an estimated net worth of $20 million. His net worth comes from prize money and through endorsements and sponsorships.

Some of his sponsors include Hoka One One, Pizzicletta, Mother Road Brewing Company, Maurten, and Squirrels Nut Butter.

Images: walmsleyruns