How Does Diplo Survive a Weekend Running, DJing, and Partying? His Whoop Data Tells the Story.

6 min readOn a Saturday morning in August, at exactly 10 a.m., August Thomas Wesley Pentz, the DJ known as Diplo, stood outside the Barlume Beach Club in Montauk, Long Island and delivered a sermon to hundreds of runners. “I'm very tired; I slept three hours for you guys,” he shouted through a megaphone, dressed in grey cargo shorts, a tank top, and pink aviator shades. “But now we're ready to run. Let's have a good time.”Then one of the world’s most prolific DJs launched himself into a 5K through the sand and rocks of Gin Beach. It was a run club event organized by A Team, a dating app for the wellness-obsessed, and Diplo's Run Club, which stages nine group runs across the U.S. (and soon, Europe).As I watched him that sunny and hot morning, I couldn’t stop thinking: how the hell is this guy still standing, let alone leading a run? It was only Saturday, and Diplo was already deep into a frenzied weekend. He landed in New York City on Thursday morning after taking the overnight flight from his home in Malibu. That evening he DJ’d from 12:30 A.M. to 3 A.M. at the Edge, a venue 100 floors above the city. On Friday, he boarded a seaplane for the Hamptons, where he performed two more sets: a sunset show at Surf Lodge, where Jimmy Buffett and Snoop Dogg have played to crowds of models and billionaires, followed by an impromptu set at Mary Lou's, a Montauk club on the harbor where he’d only meant to hang out but ended up taking the decks. He didn't leave until around 1 a.m.I was at both venues and felt deeply, existentially hungover the next morning. I figured—hoped, really—the run would include some walking. Diplo, however, led the pack. He wore a Whoop, the health tracker with which he has a partnership, and reached a heart rate of 167 beats per minute. “He wasn't taking it easy at all,” said Greg Grosicki, a staff research scientist at Whoop who reviewed Diplo’s data from his weekend in Montauk.Courtesy of Diplo Run ClubDiplo leads a group of runners in August during an event organized by A Team, a dating app for the wellness-obsessed, and Diplo’s Run Club, which stages nine group runs across the U.S. (and soon, Europe).I didn't understand how a 47-year-old pulled off this feat—the travel, the DJ sets, the cavorting, the running—without collapsing and retreating to his hotel suite for the rest of the weekend. On Saturday evening he had two more sets, one at the annual gala of the Surfrider Foundation, which supports ocean conservation and includes Sean McPherson and John Slattery as supporters. After that he DJ’d a private party for investment executive Michael Dorrell before flying private to Ibiza overnight for his next gig.After the run—which, miraculously, I did finish—I talked with Diplo about how he survives this lifestyle. He even shared his Whoop data with me from the weekend so I could compare his body’s reaction with how he told me he felt. “I'm actually fully cracked out every day, doing way more than running and DJing, more than anybody else,” he said.He likes to sound nonchalant about it. “When I did an interview with some of the Whoop counselors, they were like, your body is very similar mentally to a Navy SEAL or an ER nurse. You're able to just get up and go do whatever,” he said. “I can always get up and get shit done, unless I'm sick.” OK, so maybe Diplo was just born with it. But I learned that he does more for his physical and mental health than he likes to let on. This is the story of how a 47-year-old, internationally renowned DJ, who works and parties into the pre-dawn hours, travels the world, and leads packs of people on runs, pulls it off without coming apart at the seams.CardioRunning appeals to him because it travels well. All you need is a pair of shoes and the will to put them on. “I do things I can do anywhere,” he said. “Running is free.” He aims for 15 miles a week across three or four runs, averaging a seven-and-a-half to eight-minute mile. His fastest mile, six and a half minutes, came after his run club appeared on the prediction platform Polymarket, where people bet against him. “That's what motivated me to run pretty fast,” he said with a laugh.DJing counts as cardio, too. After all, his sets typically run at least two hours. “It's a mix of dancing and standing,” he said. “It's almost like a little air squat.” He's baffled that his dancers, several from the group Major Lazer, stay in shape without a gym. “I'm like, ‘What do you guys do?’” he said. “They're like, ‘We don't do anything. We just dance at your shows.’"The numbers back him up: during his Surf Lodge set, his max heart rate hit 117 bpm. “If you consider these sets are two hours long, maintaining a heart rate of 120 is a real physical activity,” Greg Grosicki, the research scientist at Whoop, told me. “It's equivalent to riding a bike for two hours. You feel pretty wrecked after that, and he's getting equivalent strain from his sets.”Strength TrainingDiplo mixes cardio and weights in HIIT sessions and does 100 to 200 push-ups a day, several times a week, usually in his hotel room. “It takes five minutes of your life,” he said.Once a week he wears an electrical muscle stimulation, or EMS, suit for 20 minutes. “It does pulsing with simple moves,” he said, naming a brand called Catalyst and a newer one, Pepper, he's about to try. He credits the suit, half-jokingly, for his arm muscles.He also takes hot Pilates classes with light weights and works out at Barry's Bootcamp near his home in Malibu. “There's an unwritten rule about group fitness in California: you don't bother celebrities,” he said. “You let them get their job done, then you tell people you saw Chris Martin. Every time I go to Pilates, he's next to me.”Courtesy of A Team and Diplo's Run ClubRunners hanging out after Diplo led them on a 5K as part of an event organized by A Team and Diplo’s Run Club in the Hamptons.Sleep and RecoveryAccording to the data, long flights, especially red eyes, hit Diplo hard, said Grosicki. After an overnight flight to Ibiza, Diplo's recovery score—a measure of how ready the body is to perform—dropped to 21 percent, and his sleep score to 29 percent. That’s well below average for him. “He's human, and he's responding to these stressors,” Grosicki said.“I do like to get the red eyes, which probably messes up my sleep the most, but I'd rather be outside in the day,” Diplo said. “Being on a plane during the day is so depressing.” He said he struggles to hold a circadian rhythm and sometimes crashes mid-afternoon. On Thursday, for example, he slept five hours in the middle of the day ahead of his set at the Edge.Winding down after a set is its own challenge. “I might take a Xanax if I have to,” he said. “I got to stop thinking about things.” He also puts his phone away, listens to audiobooks and history podcasts, skips food before bed (though he does chug electrolytes), and uses PEMF mats, which send low-frequency electromagnetic waves through the body to aid in relaxation. Mostly, though, he just takes what sleep he can get.Jeff Kravitz//Getty ImagesDiplo performs with members of the group Major Lazer in Las Vegas one month after the long weekend for which he shared his personal Whoop data.Saturday morning, after two Friday-night sets in Montauk, his recovery score was 67 percent and his sleep score 65 percent, both above average. On Monday, after he spent the night in Ibiza, his recovery score was 56 percent and sleep was 62 percent. As Grosicki put it, “He bounces back.”Diplo avoids drinking before shows and on travel days and hasn't done recreational drugs in six months. When he does, it's acid. “I would run on acid, just try things on acid,” he said. “I could fly a plane on acid.”Mental Health“Mental health is pretty much everything,” Diplo said. “But you have to get there sometimes by exercising. Finding your body, being in tune with your body, is probably the first thing you can do to have a clear mind, to get rid of any sickness you have, whatever's keeping you down. That's the first way to start.”He's tried more unconventional resets, too. Seven years ago, he smoked toad venom. “I'll never do it again, but it was pretty hardcore,” he said. “It's a really big ego death. Being humbled is very good wellness.”Whatever he's doing, it seems to be working, at least by the numbers. Whether the rest of us should try it is a different question entirely.