How Long Does It Take to Run Across the Country? (Read 3282 times)

Have you ever considered running from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean? I have. In 1979, my college sent a group of guys from the west coast to the east coast (and, just for the hell of it, up to Rochester, NY) as a 24 hour relay to celebrate RIT's 150th anniversary. I really wanted to do something like that, but couldn't get the funding together when I was still in school, and I was too scared to quit my job and actually go out and run with the guys when they put it together in 2004 for RIT's 175th anniversary. Maybe they'll need an adviser in 2029...(and yes, all of the recent alumni currently have a "baby pool" going on who is going to have kids that will be able to be on that team, since they'll be born in the next few years.) One of the guys wrote a book about the experience back in 2006 that is really good. This year, a couple of the guys spent a few months putting a documentary together about the trip. They entered it into the Beijing contest over at FloTrack - the winning video wins 2 tickets the Olympics. If you have 27 minutes to spare, it's a great documentary: http://www.flocasts.org/flotrack/080808.php?vid=30577 If you enjoy watching it, please help them get to the finals by voting for them (6 is the best you can choose) at: http://www.flocasts.org/flotrack/080808_vote.php (their video name is Coast to Coast Relay 2004)

The current Boston Marathon race director, Dave McGillivray, ran across the US in 1978, raising money for the Jimmy Fund. He gave a talk at the Salem State College (very near my home) last year. He seems to be a very approachable person and you can try contacting him. He will be especially interested if you consider doing some type of fund raising. I remember that he said he was very intimidated at the thought of crossing the Rockies - and it ended up not being that big a deal. You go up and over and you are done. Crossing PA was unexpectedly HARD. It's up and down, up and down and it was killing him - his solution was to up his mileage to 80 mi/day just to get it over with. He also had trouble with knee pain from always running on the left side of the road. He fixed that by running on the right side too (this was 1978 and no one talked about how a crown in the road can hurt you). For a start, check out http://www.bostonmarathon.org/BostonAthletic/mcgillivray.asp and http://www.dmsesports.com/ You might also get a copy of his book, The Last Pick. I have not read it yet, but I keep meaning to. Good luck on doing this. I am enough of a romantic to want to do it too. However, I don't have the courage to actually do something about it! John

May be loosely based on CC Pyle's Amazing Foot Race in 1928, which was recently featured in Runners World. I may put up a link if I can find the direx, but Lost is on.

I read that! Pretty cool article.

While not exactly what you asked for, I read a book in high school named Flanagan's Run about a 1929 road race across America. Very enjoyable read. I'm not sure if the race was based on a true story. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9904E1DF103BF93BA35754C0A964948260

May be loosely based on CC Pyle's Amazing Foot Race in 1928, which was recently featured in Runners World. I may put up a link if I can find the direx, but Lost is on.

My sister in law gave me a book by Geoff Williams that is called, "C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race" - it's an interesting read, I've gotten through about half of it.