Cody Ko Is Embracing the Full Running Journey (2024)

This week, the New York Road Runners announced the most tracked runner from this year’s New York City Marathon live results. It wasn’t Bachelor star Matt James or anyone in the professional race. The masses wanted to keep a close eye on Cody Kolodziejzyk.

If that name doesn’t ring a bell, you might know him by his abbreviated stage name: Cody Ko. The YouTuber and comedian finished his first NYC in 3:53:29. Ko started out creating Vines in 2013, but he’s since grown a mostly Gen Z audience through his reaction-based YouTube channel, which has raked up over 6 million followers. He also hosts a podcast, The Tiny Meat Gang Podcast, and makes music and DJs.

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More recently, he started a YouTube channel called Cody Trains, where he shares his fitness journey. At first, Ko had to assure followers that the channel wasn’t about model trains, but he’s since gained a following documenting his path to becoming an avid runner and multisport athlete. In August of 2022, he ran his first ultramarathon—a 60K trail race near the Canadian Rockies—and in May, he completed an IRONMAN in Port Macquarie, Australia.

Ko chatted with Runner’s World before running NYC to talk about his exercise-junkie parents, being a Division I diver at Duke University, and upcoming fatherhood (his wife, YouTuber Kelsey Kreppel, is due in January.)

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Runner’s World: Do you generally like to do a big city race like New York and make an event out of it? Or do you ever sprinkle in some smaller stuff?

Cody Ko: This is actually the first time that I’ve done a race in a really big city like this. Even the Ironman that I did was in Port Macquarie, [Australia], which is a couple hours north of Sydney. So this is the first time I've done one of the big races in a big city. I don’t know what I prefer yet.

You had a pretty active family growing up, right?

My family is very active. Growing up, we would do a lot of bike trips, and that’s how we would go on vacations and spend time together as a family. Exercising was always involved somehow. So growing up, it was always like a fun thing for me. And then I’d watch them do Ironmans and marathons. Growing up, I watched my dad break the world record for distance traveled in 24 hours by human power. My parents were always like superheroes.

Wait … Your dad set a world record?

Yep. The longest distance traveled in 24 hours by human power.

What do you mean by “human power?”

He engineered a bike—it was a recumbent bicycle with a carbon fiber shell over top. He got in and rode it around a track for 24 hours. I think he stopped twice to go number two. Every year, as most boys do, they get the Guinness Book of World Records for Christmas. And one year, he was in it. There was a picture of him, which is like the coolest thing for a little boy to see their own dad in the Guinness Book of World Records.

How did you get into diving?

I was 10 years old, and one of my best friends at the time signed up for a learn-to-dive class. He was like, “Do you want to do it?” And I was like, “I’m gonna wear a Speedo? No, that sounds really stupid.” But then I felt bad, and so we did it. And I fell in love with it. He quit shortly after that, and I was like, “This is my thing now.” I did it for 12 years after that.

Do you have to be pretty aerobically fit for diving? Is there much crossover with running? Swimming is obviously an easy transition, but is diving a little more technique rather than just total fitness?

Diving is a lot of strength and coordination and air awareness and stuff like that. I feel like those are the biggest skills you need. But I think being aerobically healthy helps for anything in life. So I kind of wish that I did more cardio when I was diving.

When you got into long distance running, what was the most intimidating part at the start?

The hardest part is—I hear this from a lot of people—is that when they start, they’re like, “Oh, this isn’t for me.” Because, you know, you feel like sh*t. I went through that same sort of thing. I still remember my first run. It was in the neighborhood that I lived in in Palo Alto. And I made it half a mile I think, and I’m like “I’m not built for this. It sucks.”

But continuing to go out and trust that your body will adapt, I think that’s probably the hardest part. But once it happens, it’s an amazing feeling. It’s like a lesson: If I can do this, then this probably applies to other things in life, too.

Did anyone give you any pretty solid advice?

There was something I heard but also saw from watching my parents: The limits of the human body are way, way further than you ever thought would be possible. How much you can push yourself is probably a lot further than you think.

Obviously content creation is your job. How do you balance that with, like, “This is my running time. This is for me.”

I actually feel like running goes hand-in-hand with work very nicely because sometimes you want to be distracted from work and sometimes you want to be distracted from running. So you can use it as a tool. A lot of times in the morning, I’ll listen to my own music like 50 times over and over if it’s getting mastered, to really think about dialing it in. My new single, Not Going Home, comes out on Friday—shameless plug, go listen to it—but that’s one of those songs where I listened to it 5,000 times, probably, to make sure it was right.

But then other times, you want to be distracted from work. And running is a great tool for meditating and turning off your brain and hitting that flow state. It’s a time in the morning that I cherish.

If you’re not listening to your own music, what are you usually listening to?

It totally changes just based on the workout. If I’m doing intervals, it has to be loud techno music. If I’m up for a long, gentle run, it’s a long podcast. Or sometimes I listen to house music. I think about how it’s produced and what’s special about a certain song. That’s like a nice little research period.

I know the Cody Trains YouTube channel is a little newer, and it’s kind of an offshoot of your main channel. Talk a bit about how that developed and how it fits into your time and energy.

When I signed up for an IRONMAN, I was researching online and trying to find people that documented their training journey for an Ironman. And a lot of people do it in this, like, highly polished way. Most fitness content online, I feel like they try to make it aspirational, right? So when people think about aspirational content, they’re like, “I have to inspire people, which means I have to be this perfect version of what people aspire to be.” But I don’t feel like anyone really shows what it’s actually like day to day, the ups and downs.

So that was my intention. I just want to show people how training fits in my day, how my week looks, what it looks like when I’m going through a great period where every run is faster than the last. And what it looks like when I’m sick or injured and I’m depressed because I can’t train. No one really shows that side of it. So that was the intention.

You’re gonna be a dad soon, and marathon training is super time intensive. Is that weighing on your mind a lot? Are you trying to fit in training before that stuff happens?

The first couple months, Kelsey and I are going to play by ear and see how much time we actually have to do our own thing … I feel like you just don’t really know until you have the kid. But I do want to continue training as much as I can. Because I feel like training has been going really well, so I’d like to hit another marathon in the first or second quarter of next year.

What do you think your next five to 10 years of running looks like, ideally?

Well, I think I want to go for the world record marathon time.

What is that again?

Two hours, I believe.

[We both laugh]

I do have a pipe dream. I want to break three hours in the marathon. And I think that’s going to be really hard. It’s one of those goals that scares me to even say because I know I’m gonna have to get in the best shape of my life to do that. But I do think it’s possible. And I think if a goal isn’t scaring you, it’s not big enough.