Son Eats More Than 40 Pancakes While Father Runs for 24 Hours

June 3, 2011 -- Greg Hardesty and his son, Rio, are both endurance athletes of very different sorts. Greg Hardesty is a ultramarathoner, who on Sunday completed a 105 mile, 24 hour run to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project.
His son, on the other hand, could be said to be an endurance eater. On Sunday, Rio and his six friends decided to take on Denny's all-you-can-eat pancakes for 24 hours.
"I got the idea from one of their commercials, all-you-can-eat-pancakes," said Brenden Griffin, 17, who put together the challenge. "Then I started thinking they're open 24 hours, so why don't we make them run out of business, but that didn't happen."
The boys consumed a total of 301 pancakes, an average of 43 pancakes person, or roughly 10,000 calories per person.
"I sort of looked at the irony of everything. Here I am, out losing 10,000 calories in 24 hours and here they are putting on a similar amount of calories, and I thought that's sort of odd," said Greg Hardesty, a writer for the Orange County Register.
To stay awake, the boys took shots of syrup and put ketchup and hot sauce on their hotcakes. They say, surprisingly, after the experience they are eager to do it again, but next time they want to raise money for charity.
"Now that they've done it once and learned about my run ... about how I raise money for this charity, they're thinking of doing this again and maybe having more of a point to it and trying to raise money for a charity of their own choice. I'm not sure who it is, maybe it's the Aunt Jemima charity or something," Greg Hardesty joked.
Watch "The Conversation" to meet the motley crew that survived 24 hours of Denny's pancakes.