This Nova Scotian just ran his first marathon. He trained for it by eating donairs

Growing up in Cape Breton, David Wadden thought donairs were fixtures at pizza shops worldwide.

It wasn't until he moved to Halifax that he learned the beloved official food of the city — spiced meat served on a pita with onions, tomatoes and a sweet garlicky sauce — was not a global thing. Well, not yet at least.

This realization, coupled with the fact that he couldn't name a favourite donair spot to friends visiting from out of town, got him thinking about how to incorporate a journey of donair discovery, exercise and raising money for charity.

"Thinking of exercise, I went to running, donair and marathon, kind of shove those two words together, and then once we had the name Donair-Athon … the ball really started to roll," said Wadden, 29.

Wadden ran and biked to 59 donair shops in the Halifax area this year to eat donairs, rate them and post videos about the experiences. He's raised more than $2,200 for Feed Nova Scotia doing so.

But that wasn't the hard part. After eating the donair, he faced the ungodly task of running or biking back home.

David Wadden rated the donairs on factors such as meat and pita quality, and tracked the results in a publicly available spreadsheet. He even weighed the donairs to calculate the price per pound. (Submitted by David Wadden)

This unorthodox training regimen resulted in Wadden running a 42.2-kilometre marathon two weeks ago at the Valley Harvest Marathon in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley.

Wadden said after eating the donairs, sometimes he felt great, sometimes not.

Halifax declares donairs the official food of the city

"There was the odd time where I felt better after the donair, I don't know why," he said. "But most of the time I was a little sluggish getting back out and running.