Forrest Gump was undoubtedly one of the greatest films of the 90’s, if not Tom Hanks’ career. And we all of course remember that famous scene where he just decides to go and run, for no real reason, all the way across the United States and then back again.
Well one man loved that scene so much he’s currently re-enacting it, all in the name of charity. In fact, Barclay’s aim is to raise a whopping $10,000 for the Hall STEPS Foundation.
Starting in Los Angeles and finishing in Maine, 28-year-old Barclay Oudersluys will cover a staggering 3,150 miles. And he aims to do all of this in 100 days.
Having started on 9 May, Barclary has just made it to Hoopeston Illinois, passing stop 62, Springfield.
Barclay is an active endurance runner, and prior to his challenge, he stated this about training for the challenge: “Those of you who know me know I’m a pretty confident guy, maybe sometimes too confident, and that confidence hasn’t let me down on any of my endurance events yet so I don’t think it will this time either.
“Also, it’s pretty different from running a marathon in that for this I won’t be going all out. If I were to try to run this whole thing at my marathon pace, about 7:00 per mile, I’d make it through one day pretty quickly but after that things would go downhill quickly.
“But, if I do what I normally do for a 30+ mile training run and stick to about a 9:00 pace for my miles I should be ok. I usually recover from those training runs pretty quickly and I can always run fairly well the next day, so this seems within reach.”
You can take a sneak peak at Barclay’s route here.
You can also follow him on Twitter, or find out how to donate through his blog.
And he’s off for the day! Cool and wet start to the day. I’ll w biking alongside @ProjectGump for the morning. pic.twitter.com/BylN4fJ3r3
— Jesse Frank (@JFrank32) June 12, 2015
