On the course of the recent Austin Marathon, one man stunned onlookers: shirtless, wearing a baseball cap and an American-flag bandana, he tore past at an average pace of 3:44/km. Even more surprising, he was wearing blue jeans on his lower half, and finished with an astonishing time of 2:36:56.

But if you're familiar with Truett Hanes, you'll know this is just business as usual for him. The "denim run" has long been his personal trademark.

Image credit:@just_truett

This was not Hanes' first time racing a marathon in jeans. Last year he ran 2:42:50 in Austin; in the following months he went on to conquer the Boston Marathon (2:38:29) and the Eugene Marathon (2:34:45), all while wearing jeans.

Besides tearing up the roads, he is also the world record holder for “most pull-ups in 24 hours (10,001)”, which he set while wearing jeans; he even finished the 2025 Leadville 100-mile ultramarathon in the same signature trousers, completing it in under 24 hours.

Currently sponsored by the brand “The Perfect Jean”, Hanes wore a pair of traditional wired earphones tucked into his headscarf on race day and ran in ASICS METASPEED SKY PARIS carbon-plate shoes.

Image source:@just_truett

This New Year's Day, he announced on social media, where he has 500,000 followers, that his next big goal is to try to qualify for the 2028 U.S. Olympic Trials in the marathon.

Although he ran a personal PB of 2:29:49 at the California International Marathon (CIM) last December (he wasn’t wearing jeans for that race), he is still 14 minutes shy of the 2:16:00 threshold to qualify for the trials, and he has roughly two years before the qualifying window closes at the end of January 2028 to try to push his time up for the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.

Text:Training Notes / Editor:Paoye