Real Life Forrest Gump Runs 50 Miles Around San Francisco To Spell Out ‘Warriors 2017 NBA Champs’

Pretty awesome story about Jim Plunkett Cole, a UK-born long distance runner who’s a real-life Forrest Gump. Inspired by Forrest Gump’s three-year run around the United States, aJim left Mobile, Alabama back in October to embark on a three-year, 20,000-mile run around the United States. The 47-year-old’s adventure includes daily stops at schools around the country to encourage kids to live a healthy, active lifestyle. It’s a pretty cool cause:

The 47-year-old Plunkett-Cole says the grand scheme started back in 2013 when the London Olympics inspired him to run 365 back-to-back 10Ks. After accomplishing that feat, he carried on in 2014, but also set up a public initiative to encourage adults to do something physical every day for a full year. In 2015, he added swimming and biking to the mix, and succeeded in completing a triathlon every day.

That same year, he was invited to speak at a primary school, where he told children of the adventures he had during his daily exercise and encouraged them to engage in physical activity. After his speech, he led the children on a run around the playground.

“The children were really fired up and just wanted to keep on running,” he says, “even when the teachers wanted them to stop. I came away feeling really inspired myself.”

Jim is currently in Northern California. He actually found himself in San Francisco during the Golden State Warriors Finals win, checking the score of the games at bars during his run. Inspired by passion of the Bay Area, Jim embarked on a project to spell out a tribute using a GPS run-tracker:

“It seemed to be something that was bringing people together,” Plunkett-Cole said. “What inspired me was their passion for their team.”

…

He started the run on Thursday, three days after the title game, at about 5 p.m. He first ran the “A” and “B” in NBA. Then he started running “Champs.” By 9 p.m., he had finished the “C” when he looked down at one of his two watches that tracks his runs. He had ran 18 miles.

“The word ‘Warriors’ is much bigger than what you’ve already done,” Plunkett-Cole told himself. “You are not going to be able to complete that today.”

He called it a night and went back to his hotel. The next day, around 4 p.m., he went back to where he left off. He finished tracing off “Warriors” and “2017.” He ran with his AAA map to avoid mistakes. He ran under clear blue skies, over countless streets, and up and down the city’s famed hills.

When he finished Friday night, he looked at his watch to see how far he had run: 50.3 miles.

Then he did something that was normal: He slept until noon the next day. But he didn’t skip his daily 17-mile run.

That’s more ambition than I’ll ever have at… pretty much anything. The result is the following:

Go read more about Jim’s run around the United States over at Pledge Sports.