On Thursday evening, 77-year-old Swedish ultrarunner Björn Suneson dipped his toes into the Atlantic Ocean on a abandoned seashore in Sayreville, N.J. Other than Suneson, his son Erik and a photographer, nobody in Sayreville knew the magnitude of what had simply occurred—it was his ninth solo transcontinental run throughout America.
In his last weblog publish, Suneson wrote: “With two toes within the Atlantic Ocean and a brief swim, my ninth coast-to-coast [run] is completed. Is that this a ‘world document’? Since it’s not a contest, it will not be an actual document, however nobody on the earth has run so many occasions throughout America.”
This journey, he writes, was the hardest but, highlighted by excessive climate, accidents and some scary moments on the street. Over 105 days, he lined almost 5,000 kilometres, operating from the Pacific Ocean in Lincoln Metropolis, Ore., to Sadowski Parkway Waterfront Park in New Jersey. Suneson’s first U.S. transcontinental run was in 2007 at 59, when he ran 95 days solo from Florence, Ore., to Virginia Seaside, Va.
“I’ve been operating day-after-day regardless of a long-term irritation in a tendon behind my knee,” Suneson wrote. “Fortunately, I haven’t had any ache these days and recovered.”
Averaging 47 kilometres a day, Suneson even survived what he referred to as a near-death expertise in Wyoming, when a distracted driver got here inside “millimetres” of hitting him on the shoulder of the street.
All through the run, he posted every day updates and reflections on his weblog. For Suneson, these transcontinental crossings are usually not about charity, data or media consideration. He says they’re merely simply “a enjoyable journey,” and a solution to expertise America past the vacationer spots.
In his personal manner, he’s like a modern-day Forrest Gump, solely with a weblog as an alternative of a beard.
