Paul Wheeler is not your average human. A retired soldier, Paul is currently undertaking the mammoth, gruelling, head-spinningly difficult task of running solo, and unsupported, from California to New York, a hefty 3,000 miles. That’s 115 marathons back to back, with one rest day a week. To put this in context, more than 4,000 people have scaled the summit of Everest since the first expedition in 1921, compared with just 300 people who have successfully run across the United States.
Paul set off from the Golden Gate Bridge on 1 June and expects to finish his run on the Brooklyn Bridge by the 1 October, giving him a cool four months to raise money for The Royal British Legion. During a rare pit stop in a cheap motel in Nebraska, Paul managed to acquire enough Wi-Fi to tell us what it’s like trying to traverse an entire continent with as little equipment as is needed for a Duke of Edinburgh bronze award.
Why would a thirty-five-year-old guy from the Isle of Wight – and a self-proclaimed ‘average runner’ – embark on such an almighty challenge? After 12 years serving in the British army, and four subsequent years as a civilian, Paul found himself somewhat lost, having spent most of his adult life living out of a backpack. Finding it hard to settle into a nine-to-five job and a house, and finding his dream of taking on at least one life-affirming challenge drifting, he decided to do something about it.
“I’d spent years and years reading autobiographies and watching documentaries about amazing people who’d undertaken some incredible challenges and expeditions all around the world and I'd finish all of them asking myself "Why can't I do that?" or 'What's stopping me from doing something similar?’"
Almost two months into his challenge and he’s doing well. In his first six days, Paul managed to get 145 miles (233 kilometres) under his belt, through a hot and sunny California. It took five whole days of running before he caught a glimpse of cloud and then experienced some rare Californian June snow.
Now more acclimatised to the heat, it’s the humidity he is currently struggling with, which rises the further east you go into Nebraska towards Iowa.
Meanwhile, he’s already on his third pair of trainers and expects to go through five over the course of the trip, getting US friends to post to his nearest local post office en route as they map his progress.
With only his social media followers to provide continuous support, and the occasional traveller, loneliness and tedium are daily battles. Sometimes his only company is his 45 kilogram sidekick Wheelson, a stroller donated to him by sponsor Thule to carry all his food, water, clothing, cooking and camping equipment. Wheelson is named after Tom Hank’s inanimate companion – a volleyball – in the film Cast Away, with whom Hanks spends four years on a deserted island.
Podcasts and music help, as well as breathtaking sights, such as the red rocks of Utah and the wild horses in Nevada, which Paul cherishes. That, and the kindness of strangers. The hospitality of the American people has helped enormously, from those stopping at the side of the road to give him an ice-cold bottle of water, or winding down their window and handing him a $20 note to get a meal in the next town. He’s even had offers of a bed for the night.
On a journey that’s seen him run alongside a busy interstate in a size 2XL luminescent trucker vest, have an intimidating exchange with a gang in Sacramento, and having been warned not to approach people’s driveways in Fallon, Nevada, if he ran out of water because he’d be “shot before making it 30 feet [10 metres]” – what keeps him going?
It is this that spurs him on every day, along with thoughts of spending Christmas with his family and raising money for The Royal British Legion.
You can keep track and read more about Paul’s adventure on his blog, by checking out his Facebook page, Twitter or Instagram. If you would like to support him on his expedition, you can donate to The Royal British Legion via Paul’s JustGiving page.
And, if you fancy reading about another trans-American expedition, check out the retired US marine who cycled across the States in our article Racing Across America.