An Inside Look at Kevin Hart’s Hood to Coast Run

On August 26 and 27, fresh off an international comedy tour where he frequently hosted spontaneous 5Ks, superstar Kevin Hart completed his first official race—Oregon’s Hood to Coast. 

Hart joined a team of 12, completing three segments of the 199-mile overnight relay. In 24 hours, he ran just over 18 miles—the most he’d run in a single day. Before putting him on the cover of our November issue, Runner’s World tagged along to get a behind-the-scenes look at his epic running adventure. 

Nike partnered with Hart to grow his spontaneous 5Ks and his health initiative dubbed “Move With Hart.” The company pitched him the idea of running Hood to Coast last spring, but he had no idea what was in store. Here’s how he recounted the initial conversation:

Nike said: Basically it’s 12 people and you run 199 miles in a day. Each of you runs a portion.

I said: What would I have to run?

They said: Somewhere between 17 and 20 miles.

I said: You all can kiss my ass.

They said: Kevin, look at what it is. People do this every year.

I said: Stop right there. I shouldn’t have to be convinced to set a goal. I’m in.

In a room on the lower level of his hotel, seven hours before he is scheduled to run, Hart paces in front of the spacious breakfast buffet. He’s worried about how well he’ll digest the spread. “Should I pack some berries?” he says. He picks a burrito, takes a few bites, then sets it on a coffee table. “Any way we can get a toilet to follow the van?”

Hart spray-paints a large green “K” next to a heart shape on the driver’s side window of his team’s white van. His five other vanmates paint their own names as they wait for the other six members of their team, dubbed “Dimension 6,” to finish their legs and arrive in a separate van.

“This is ‘Operation Put My Foot in Hood to Coast’s Ass,’“ Hart says. “Now that I am here, my presence will be felt and you all will see Little Hot Feet tear this mountain up. Portland, Oregon, will never be the same.”

A runner reaches the handoff spot with a red splotch appearing on their white singlet. Hart looks concerned. “I had no idea nipple chafing was a thing,” he says.

A fan yells to Hart, “What legs are you running?” He responds, “All of them.”

Kevin Duffy (left), a 34-year-old fireman and Ironman triathlete, runs with Hart during each leg to act as security. Hart calls him “K2.”

Hart is wearing black headphones embossed with gold over a backward white cap. “I have 27 songs from hell lined up,” he says. Included on the playlist: Future, Michael Jackson, and Justin Bieber.

Two high-school-aged volunteers, wearing orange safety vests, direct Hart to make a right turn. As he passes, one volunteer says to the other, “Wait, was that Kevin Hart?”

The other responds, “Yes, yes, that is Kevin Hart!”

The first volunteer shouts down the trail, “Why did no one tell us he was coming? We could have gotten a picture!” Hart is already 50 meters away.

Hart films three successive 10-second Snapchat videos, pointing his iPhone camera at his face. “This is where it gets real, the night stage. We’re in the woods,” he says toward the phone.

The feeble service isn’t strong enough to send out the videos. “This is serious,” he says in mock desperation. “Somebody sound the alarm.”

He circles the van with his phone, looking for one more bar of service. He wears a bandana over most of his face to block the dust kicked up by other vans.

“I got the ‘runners high’ at the tail end of my night run,” Hart says. “That’s when I realized I was moving. I think I was holding like a 7:30 pace.

“I was just on a high because I felt good. I call it the Jell-O when it comes to stand-up comedy, when I am writing funny stuff back to back to back. I am in the Jell-O.”

Nature finally called Hart at sunrise after he’d slept inside the van for three hours. He enters a porta-potty while wearing his sleeping bag like a parka.

“The porta-potty definitely can kiss my ass,” he says. “Luckily, I got into it early enough where I didn’t get the full effect.”

Hart picks at broccoli and roasted chicken in a black plastic tray for breakfast, kept in a cooler overnight in the back of the van. He then grabs a spray paint can to draw his six “kills”—runners he passed during his overnight leg—with hash marks on the side of the vehicle. 

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“Now I am cramping up; legs cramping,” Hart sputters through heavy breathing. “Mind over matter. Mind over matter.”

Vans that are filled with other teams pass on Hart’s right side, most yelling his name.

Hart is handed a silver medal with a blue ribbon. “Let’s wear this proud; wear it proud,” he says. “I am hurting. It was a great experience. I loved it. We made it.”

His team finished in 30:03:17, 358th overall. His teammates head to a tent for postrace beers and barbecue. Hart never stops walking, straight from the finish to a hired car. He’s on his way back to Portland for an evening screening of his latest project, a stand-up comedy film called What Now? (Want to try Hood to Coast one day? Here are tips on How to to Run an Overnight Relay.)

“This is a big deal. Let me tell you what I am going to put inside my trophy case: the pamphlet with my legs on it and the mileage; I am going to put the medal in there; the sneakers that I ran in; and the Dimension 6 jacket. It’s my first Hood to Coast. It’s a major moment for me.”