What do you get when you mix marathon mileage, food court favourites, and a whole lot of chaotic good energy?
If you’re Amir Nikravan, you get the unofficial Costco Marathon, a 42.2-kilometre warehouse-hopping endurance event powered by hot dogs and pure running joy.
Fresh off his Off the Rail run series in 2024, where he ran the full length of all the SkyTrain lines over one month, Nikravan had a craving for something new.
“The Costco Marathon was a fun little run idea that had been brewing in my head for the past few months,” he shares with the Straight. “Last year I ran all three of the SkyTrain lines, so I wanted to do something a little different this time around. Costco has a big fan following, so how can I create an event that's fun enough for people to join in on my crazy run idea?”
That something different turned into a 42.2-kilometre trek linking five Lower Mainland Costco locations: Port Coquitlam, both Burnaby warehouses, Vancouver, and Richmond, which took place this past Saturday.
“Originally, I had the route planned as a 30km run from four Costcos,” Nikravan explains. “But then I was curious about the distance to add a fifth and it worked out perfectly to be a marathon distance.”
The run started at 9 a.m. in Port Coquitlam, timed to the store’s opening, and came with one delicious catch.
“At each location we stopped to have an item off the menu," Nikravan says. Some people had a hot dog at each food court, while others worked their way through different menu items.”
He shared the event on Strava and a few run club channels, not expecting much, but word spread fast. A total of 27 runners participated throughout the day. Five finished the full marathon distance, while many more tackled distances of over 30K or half-marathon lengths.
Onlookers were amused. “We had plenty of people honk at us during the run in a friendly way or people taking photos while they were shopping,” Nikravan says.
Even Costco employees embraced the chaos.
“The managers at every Costco were so nice when they saw us,” he adds. “At the Still Creek location, that manager stopped us on our way past Customer Service to ask what we had planned for the day. We told him our story, and he loved our idea so much that he took a photo with us and offered us some water. He also called the next Costco in Vancouver to let them know we were coming, and same to the Richmond location, where we were welcomed by their managers and given waters as well.”
With legs sore and bellies full, Nikravan says there’s a good chance the Costco Marathon will return.
“This was such a blast that it might have to be an annual thing.”
For now, the runners are recovering, the internet is buzzing, and the legend of the most wholesomely unhinged marathon in Vancouver continues to grow.
After all, anyone can run a race—but it takes a special kind of genius to finish one with mustard on their shirt.
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