Perhaps no one feels a Chicago Bears’ loss as much as the players. Well, Bears fan Chase Bandolik might.
Bandolik has pledged to run a mile for every point the team loses by this season. On Sunday, the Bears lost 52-21 to the Detroit Lions.
So yes, he ran 31 miles afterward.
“I might just sleep until next week’s game,” Bandolik said in a video posted on TikTok Sunday night, his face red and shirt soaked in sweat after completing 31.04 miles.
Bears fans are known for their devotion to the team. From Bearman the superfan who wears a real bear’s head to games to the spectator who reportedly wore only a barrel to games — and only the barrel no matter the temperature — the reputation of the fandom was solidified on “SNL” as the sausage-eating, Mike Ditka-obsessed, Chicago-aggrandizing “Bill Swerski’s Superfans.”
Now comes Bandolik, a 29-year-old fitness enthusiast and gym owner from Wheeling who has been running this challenge since the end of the Bears’ season last year. After countless Sunday games over the years, he felt down and wanted a way to combat the feeling.
Bandolik has run a total of 34 miles the past two Sundays, feats he has documented on social media. Bandolik, who enjoys running distances that stretch into hundreds of miles, said he plans to continue the challenge throughout the Bears’ season.
“It honestly made the losses feel so much better because after the games I’d be so frustrated from it and then after my run I’d feel so much better by the end of it, a lot more relaxed,” said Bandolik as he recovered Monday.
Was he sore?
“I feel a little sore, not as bad as I thought I’d feel,” Bandolik said. He even went for a run.
Bandolik is no stranger to long distances. After playing football his whole life and completing his football career at Illinois Wesleyan University in 2019, he took up running after college. He missed the spark of training for something.
In 2019, he ran the Chicago Marathon with a weighted vest. But he yearned for more intense challenges.
Over the past couple of years, he’s completed a 100-mile run, a 200-mile run and an Ironman Triathlon.
“I got really into doing these challenges and seeing what my body could handle,” he said.
In late March, he ran more than 400 miles from Cairo, Illinois, to Beloit, Wisconsin, in 10 days.
He’d seen other people run through their home states and hadn’t yet seen anyone claim the title in Illinois. He dedicated the run to his mom, with whom he is close.
“I’ve always looked up to her a lot, (she’s) a really strong woman,” he said.
Bandolik documents his challenges, as well as his workouts and personal lifestyle content on social media. He’s been posting since 2015, his senior year at John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights, he said.
His fiancee, Rylee Jade, has been by his side since they met in 2021 through TikTok. They did fitness collaborations together and started dating. They got engaged earlier this year.
“I think we’ve had this challenge mindset since the start which has kept things really fun,” said Jade, who also has her own following on social media platforms posting fitness content. “We support each other a lot throughout these different challenges and journeys but also we understand what it feels like going through it.”
Bandolik said it’s nice not having to explain content creation to someone.
“It makes it a lot easier to have us both doing content and running content because we could help each other out when needed,” Bandolik said. “When we get opportunities, a lot of times it leads to both of us getting opportunities and we do it together and have all these fun experiences together, so it’s definitely a ton of fun. I love it.”
Bandolik said it has made the Bears games more interesting. Bandolik is no longer watching to see if the Bears are going to win. He is watching to see how it will personally affect him.
Bandolik owns his own gym, Chase Bandolik Training in Northbrook, where he trains clients most of the day, he said. When he has free time in the afternoon, he creates and edits videos to post on his social media accounts.
He has no plans to slow his pace. He’s planning to run the Chicago Marathon in October and the TCS New York City Marathon in November.
Since running has been getting easier for him, he set out to do other challenges outside of the norm.
“I just really enjoy pushing myself in doing things that I feel like could be impossible and finding a way to get it done,” Bandolik said.
To cap off the year, in December he will attempt to break the world record for the longest abdominal plank position for a man, which is currently 9 hours, 38 minutes and 47 seconds, set in May 2023.
It’s another challenge in the works. Especially if the Bears don’t make it to the postseason.