Eat, sleep, run, repeat. Paul Johnson, 28, takes the slogan to another level.
“When I wake up in the morning the first hour of the run is the absolute worst,” Johnson said.
Since March 1, Johnson has been running about 60 miles a day, every day, all across America. He started in Los Angeles and is making his way to Times Square in New York City.
“We know it hurts, and it's just going to keep hurting until we're done,” Johnson said. “So, you know, we're getting through it.”
It’s called the transcontinental run, a 3,000-mile trek from coast to coast that less than 400 runners have ever completed. His goal was to try and break the world record, aiming to complete the run in 40 days. He is now slightly off track, but he’s not stopping.
“Short of a snapped femur or a backwards kneecap, or no ACL left, we're just going to, we're going to keep going with it,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he started running about a year and a half ago when he was asked to run the Marine Corps Marathon with his friend. He quickly fell in love with the training and after completing the marathon in a time that qualified him for the Boston Marathon, he decided 26.2 miles wasn’t long enough. Johnson then transitioned to ultramarathons, which is any footrace that exceeds 26.2 miles. It can be run on or off-road, or a combination of both.
Johnson obviously loves running, but he’s not out running across America just because he is an active duty Naval officer stationed at the Naval Station Newport in Newport, RI. He’s raising awareness for veterans’ mental health and trying to fundraise $1 million for Team Red, White and Blue, a nonprofit that supports the physical and mental well-being of military personnel, including himself. He said he deals with anxiety, depression, and even self-harm.
“That’s where I guess I found the love for it is the more I run, the better I feel so I’m just doing a lot of running,” Johnson said.
Johnson is hoping to de-stigmatize and encourage conversations around mental health.
“If I have a broken leg, people can see that, and they acknowledge that and they're like, ‘Oh, he has a broken leg, OK, no big deal.’ But with something like, you know, anxiety or depression at a very basic level it’s something that you can't see so nobody really understands it and they don't want to talk about it,” Johnson said.
Step by step and mile by mile, he keeps moving forward and he’s made a lot of friends along the way. Residents of states he runs through track him on his website and social media and meet up with Johnson at different points along the way. His social media is garnering attention from millions across the U.S., but he said what really matters is seeing the support in person and in the form of donations.
More than 2,000 miles into his run, residents of Ohio joined Johnson and cheered him on as he ran.
“It’s pretty incredible, I mean to make it as far as he has right now is I mean, quite a feat, [he’s] still got a good ways to go but we want to help him out,” said Jason McDonald, a resident of Marysville.
A crew of people in two vans keeps Johnson fed, hydrated, and in good spirits. Rob Sembiante is the crew lead.
“When he's running his favorite snack is Donettes powdered donuts. He's absolutely in love with these, he crushes three to four bags of these a day,” Sembiante said. “So we're getting him 10,000 calories a day. His usual burn is around 11 to 12, so it's actually not that bad of a deficit at all…and he gets about seven hours allotted a night for sleep.”
Sembiante and his crew wake Johnson up at 4:45 in the morning and keep him moving for about 15 hours with a few breaks.
A former naval officer himself, the two met just two weeks before the run started.
“Right now, he's my mortal enemy because he forces me to run more and eat more and not sleep but, yeah, after we're done, we'll be very good friends,” Johnson said.
Three-thousands miles and many more roadblocks to tackle Johnson’s body is in pain, but he’s still having some fun along the way. He stops to dance at every state line change.
“If you're not twerking, you're not working so that's kind of our state-line motto,” Johnson said.
The route is no easy feat, but he said neither is life. Johnson’s running to show the world you can do hard things, one step at a time.
“We're eventually going to get there,” Johnson said.
Johnson still has a few states to run through before he gets to his final destination in New York City. If you want to run with Johnson or donate to his cause visit here. You can also keep up with Johnson and his crew on social media.