Diplo Ran the Los Angeles Marathon After Taking LSD

Generally, when Diplo’s name has come up in the context of athletics, it’s been in the context of his owning a stake in a soccer team in Arizona. Last week, however, he opted to expand his fitness purview and ran in the Los Angeles Marathon. Oh, and apparently he did so while on LSD.

Now, there is a history of people achieving impressive athletic feats after having taken LSD. Pitcher Dock Ellis’s 1970 no-hitter against the San Diego Padres is perhaps the highest-profile example. But it also begs the question of why, exactly, you’d want to take acid and then spend the next four hours — Diplo’s time was 3:55:16 — running through the streets of Los Angeles.

Diplo announced that he was running the marathon with an AI-generated image of himself in motion, but posted a photograph of him in the actual race a few days later. “My one goal was to beat Oprah’s time and I ate that (sorry oprah),” he wrote. “The most I ever ran was 11 miles so I did what any normal person would do and took LSD.”

Abby Carney’s article on Diplo’s experience at Runner’s World clarified something — apparently running while on LSD isn’t all that unusual. Carney cites the experience of several ultramarathon runners who have taken psychedelics, including LSD, before running.

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Diplo didn’t provide any more details on his experience — including the quantity of LSD he ingested. Some people eat carbs before a race; apparently, Diplo prefers psychedelics. Still, he did reach his personal goal. It’s an unorthodox method, but evidently it worked.