On the 29th of April 2018, I began my seven month, 3,646 mile run across the United States. I passed through sixteen states, crossed mountain ranges and desserts before finishing on the California coastline on the 3rd December of the same year.
The run was completely self-supported. Everything which I needed to survive on the road lived inside my modified baby stroller (named Bugster), who was pushed the entire way across the continent. The average distance I covered each day, after removing rest days, was close to 26 miles, although for the second half of the run I was averaging thirty plus miles each day!
The places I visited, the experiences I had and people I met could never be summered into one small page of text. The journey is something that will live with me for the rest of my life, and to be honest it may take that long for it all to sink in!
Most days consisted of running in the shoulders of roads, be it freeways or farming tracks. Every now and then I would get lucky with trails or pathways and cycle tracks. One of the most memorable of these was a beautiful canal pathway that stretched 260 miles through New York state to the edge of the Niagara Falls. Not a car in sight, just cyclists and walkers for two weeks.
The run was mainly self-funded from my life savings. I had some donations from amazing supporters, strangers, family, and friends along the way which meant that any donations could be given directly to Spinal Research. Thanks to this we managed to raise over £12,000 to fund vital research projects around the world.
