How The Idea Started
Andy: During the 2004 fall semester Matt, Ken, myself, and another roommate of ours came across a website of two guys that had run across the country (www.runtheusa.com). We read their stories and looked through their pictures imagining what it would be like to live with nothing more than the clothes on your back. The idea of traveling and living this way, if only for a brief time, intrigued me. At first we joked about doing it ourselves but slowly over time the idea became a reality. Before long we were planning on how to make it happen. We decided to wait until everyone had finished school before starting this adventure. However, we could hardly wait to get started. Matt and Ken, both a year behind me, were willing to take extra classes as well as summer classes in order to start the run a year early. It has been a long three years of planning and dreaming. Now that the time has finally arrived I can hardly wait to get out there.
Over the last three years our plans have altered, the route has evolved, and personal reasons for doing such a run have changed. I have spent countless hours imagining what it will be like that first day we set out on our cross country adventure. What will we encounter? Who will we meet? Where will we sleep? However, with such thoughts in my head I remain optimistic about the journey. I strongly believe that we will meet some of the most generous people, discover new limits both physically and mentally that we never knew existed and encounter a once in a life time experience.
Matt: After a class my sophomore year of college my good friend Carlos and I discussed what it would be like to start running in to the woods and not stopping. Strongly influenced by the book Into The Wild and the website www.runtheusa.com we decided a cross country run was something we needed to do.
Ken: The idea to run across the country was first created in 2004 when a couple of our friends stumbled upon the website www.runtheusa.com. This website followed the journey of two men who ran from New York to Oregon in the spring of 2003. We spent days, even weeks, reading their stories on this site. Personally, I was amazed at everything they did and encountered. Before long, we agreed we too would embark on such a mission. We set the starting date for April 1st, 2008. Since then, we have moved up the start date and altered the route countless times but our dream has remained the same. It has been a long and strange ride to get to this point in our lives and I am excited to see what is coming up next.
