66-year-old extreme athlete: This is his simple fitness diet

Aleksandar Nakic/getty images

Hubert Karl has big plans: Shortly after his 66th birthday, the fitness coach from Zeil am Main, Franconia, got on a plane and set off for Chicago. From there he started his adventure: for 66 days he walked along Route 66 to Los Angeles, 4000 kilometers across the USA.

Karl jogs 60 kilometers every day along the side of the legendary highway. His wife and brother accompany him in the motorhome, as he said in advance in a report on the regional broadcaster TV Rheinfranken. The senior is currently passing through the state of New Mexico. He left its capital Santa Fe behind after almost 40 stages.

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“I’m currently running on the interstate highway towards Albuquerque – forced because there is no other road,” he shouts into the front camera of his smartphone on Friday, day 37 of the extreme run. In the background, large trucks rush along the highway, just past Karl. The sun hits his face. “I have to be extremely careful,” he adds in the video that he shares on his Instagram channel.

Karl lives for running. According to the information on his personal website, the qualified running therapist has covered almost 200,000 kilometers in his life, competed in over 700 competitions and ran 132 ultramarathons, which exceed the usual marathon distance of around 42.2 kilometers. He has already completed the 246 kilometer long Spartathlon in Greece 25 times and thus holds a world record. To recognize him for this achievement, the German Ultramarathon Association even named him Senior Athlete of the Year 2023.

He prepared for his American daily program for three months, initially running 80 kilometers per week from December onwards and training his knees, trunk and back twice a week with special strength units. From January onwards he increased his performance to up to 130 kilometers per week and in mid-February he said he completed seven marathons in eight days.

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Karl’s fitness tip: seasonal vegetables from his own garden

Nutrition, he reports both on his homepage and on social media, always plays an important role. Karl regularly starts the day “with a glass of nettle water to combat the loss of fluids at night and to detoxify.” He then has breakfast with a “seed porridge that gives me the macro, micro and vital substances I need”.

In order to achieve his sporting goals, he basically relies on so-called “original food” from his own garden. It provides him with vital substances in a natural way: from May to September he likes to eat strawberries, currants, jostaberries, raspberries and blackberries, from August grapes, butternut squash in autumn and carrots and kohlrabi leaves in winter.

In addition to nettle, which provides vitamins A and E as well as iron and protein, his standard repertoire also includes garlic. Its consumption prevents vascular changes. Kale is also on Karl’s menu, especially in winter – it also provides vitamins, calcium and iron.

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Karl’s local and seasonal diet is based primarily on fresh fruit and vegetables and is similar to the Mediterranean diet. This is considered one of the healthiest diets in the world and is a tip for longevity.

Karl still has 1,460 kilometers to go until he reaches the pier in Santa Monica on the Pacific. Mathematically, he circumnavigated the world five times in his entire life.

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