To train for one marathon, he runs seven a week

“I certainly wouldn’t have minded losing so much if it wasn’t for him,” Levins said.

On Sunday, Levins will tackle his first New York City Marathon as one of the favorites.

Last year, after dealing with injuries, self-doubt and a poor performance at the 2020 Summer Olympics, he bounced back in a big way to finish fourth in the men’s marathon at the world championships in Eugene, Oregon. And in March he broke the North American record for the distance of 42.2 miles he finished fifth at the Tokyo Marathon in 2 hours 5 minutes 36 seconds.

“Running is something where you’re really rewarded based on the effort you put in,” he said.

Marathon runners are known as a masochistic breed. Even among them, Levins is an outlier. He often walks 200 to 200 miles per week, which at the high end of that range equates to almost 26 miles per day.

How does he do it? He runs three to four times a week: once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once in the evening, almost always alone. He normally does his evening run at home in Portland, Oregon, on a treadmill in an oxygen deprivation tent. The idea is to simulate the aerobic effects of running at high altitude.

Jim Finlayson, his coach, said it took a “unique mentality” to train that way.

“The fact that Cam can handle the miles not only physically, but psychologically,” Finlayson said. “I mean, most people would never turn up the volume he does, because of the boredom of it or the lack of desire to keep doing something that’s so monotonous. But for him it’s probably on a meditative level.