Long distance runner Daniel Gillott has carved out a marathon route unlike any other. 

Travellers were likely rattled earlier this year to see a man in his 40s, with a steely gaze and a bulky vest laden with mystery liquids, sprint up the escalator and make a beeline towards the security gates of Christchurch airport. It’s the kind of action that you’d expect might activate a series of emergency protocols, but bystanders would have sighed in relief as he hung a left and slowed to a simple jog towards his destination: the Christchurch airport Burger King. 

The man was 42-year-old Daniel Gillott, a long-distance runner who hundreds and thousands of people have now witnessed run marathon distances between Christchurch’s humble fast food restaurants in a single day. In one particularly popular Instagram reel, set to Jimmy Buffet’s ‘Cheeseburger in Paradise’, Gillott sets out to run a 53km route between all the McDonald’s restaurants in the city. “Unc, you did amazing” wrote one commenter. “McLegend” said another. 

Gillott explained to The Spinoff that he is training to become an air traffic controller this year, and his unusual running route was part of an unconventional method of studying for assessments. “I’m a mature student, so it was tough to get into the study routine,” he said, “I needed to try and find what worked for me”. Having been a long-distance runner for a few years, Gillott tried recording his notes to listen to while running, but found nothing stuck. 

He started printing out his notes in large font and gluing them in a 3B1 notebook, periodically glancing at them while out on his regular long-distance runs. Pretty quickly, he discovered that running while reading was the secret sauce to memorising for exams (there are some studies to back this up, including this one that found participants who exercised while reading a word list had a higher recall after 24 hours after exercise than those who didn’t.)

The issue with this read-and-run method was that he couldn’t deploy it on his beloved trails in the Port Hills. “I tried doing it on trail runs and it just wasn’t safe, because you’d end up falling over a tree root or a rock or something,” he laughed. “I figured out pretty quickly that you’ve got to be on a pavement.” Bound to the flat, featureless topography of Christchurch city, Gillott needed an easy collection of landmarks to map out a grunty run-read session. 

The KFC route was his first outing, a marathon length run of 42 kilometres between nine restaurants. With the smallest number of franchises out of “the big three”, Gillott thought he would ease himself into it, while also paying homage to his Auckland running buddy “Iron” Mike Stowers. Known for running every day for the last 10 years, Stowers is “big on KFC” as a treat, said Gillott. “The KFC thing was a bit of a nod to him, because he’s all about KFC.”

While it may seem discordant to pair fast food with long distance running, Gillott said it is all about balance – he admitted to stopping occasionally for sustenance along the way. “That’s the other benefit of doing a route like that – you’ve got regular stops if you need a toilet break, or if you want to get something to eat or drink, it’s all right there.” The Burger King run came next, featuring a visit to the Christchurch Airport branch, which got a few “double takes”. 

Keen to maintain his pace on running app Strava, Gillott tried his best not to slow down, even when ticking off the franchises inside malls. “Doing a study run naturally slows my pace down a bit, about 30 seconds per kilometre, so I don’t really want to slow anything further than that,” he said. As a result, he’d jog through the busy shoppers to reach the likes of the Riccarton mall food court. Did anybody ever ask why the rush? “No, I probably looked too focussed.”

The 53km McDonald’s run was the most ambitious of the lot, reserved for a study run before his big final assessment to become an air traffic controller. “It was interesting finding out how many more McDonald’s there were compared to everything else,” Gillott said of the 14 Christchurch franchises. “I also don’t know why that McDonald’s one took off and has gone a little bit viral. I have no idea why that happened.” 

Even if he doesn’t know why his runs have gone viral, Gillott is heartened by the response. “One of the motivators for me getting into running was people who would post a little Instagram reel, or some photos from a run, so I thought mine would be a bit of fun, and also might inspire someone else to do something.” He’s inspired at least one local, who got in touch to say he recently completed a McDonald’s half marathon. “That was pretty cool.”  

The bizarre fast food runs have also paid off in that Gillott passed his final assessment with flying colours, and spoke to The Spinoff while on a long drive north to take up his first air traffic controller position at Napier airport. “I’m going to have to find something interesting to do with running in Napier,” he laughed. “They’ve only got one or two McDonald’s, so I might need to find something else.”