My spine hurts thinking about it...

March 19, 2008 2:29 PM

Could Forrest Gump really run that much?

Could Forrest Gump, or anyone for that matter, really run for 3+ years only stopping for eating, sleeping, and eliminating? Wouldn't the stress fractures sort of kill you after a while?

posted by Melismata to grab bag (23 comments total)

Someone I knew ran the John Muir trail, which is pretty long.
posted by proj08 at 2:35 PM on March 19, 2008

not if you stretched properly and ate right

and it never says exactly HOW far he ran
posted by Salvatorparadise at 2:37 PM on March 19, 2008

Salvatorparadise,

Except that he saw both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans at least twice. That's pretty damn far.
posted by leotrotsky at 2:40 PM on March 19, 2008

Terry Fox ran for 143 days, until cancer took his life.
posted by jazzman at 2:41 PM on March 19, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Ultramarathoners like Dean Karnazes run more than 200 miles at a time, stopping for short breaks only. But then they collapse for long periods at a time.

I don't think a human, or any animal, could just run during every waking hour for long without falling apart.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 2:42 PM on March 19, 2008

The John Muir trail is only 211 miles long. The longest footrace in the world is 3100 miles long.
posted by blue_beetle at 2:44 PM on March 19, 2008

(at the same rate as that 3100 mile race (74 miles/day), you would run 80,000 miles in 3 years. To put that in perspective, if you live 1 mile from a 7-11, and ran there and back continuously, and each time you got there you bought two slurpees, you would have 80,000 slurpees.)
posted by blue_beetle at 2:47 PM on March 19, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

It's been a while since I've seen the flick, but does he actually state that he ran nonstop?
posted by ImJustRick at 2:48 PM on March 19, 2008

So people run about 60 miles in a day for that aforementioned 3,100-mile race. Whoa.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 2:51 PM on March 19, 2008

This guy ran around the world in two years. Back and forth across the US a few times in three years sounds easy in comparison.

Wouldn't the stress fractures sort of kill you after a while?

Running doesn't necessarily cause stress fractures.
posted by ssg at 2:52 PM on March 19, 2008

Apologies if this sounds snarky, its really not meant to be, but this thread reminds me of one of the hilarious little "stats" from Michael Moore's "tv nation".

"23% of american gun owners think that Forrest Gump was a documentary."

:-)

I don't think you could run for three years without taking time to rest your joints. Resting isn't mentioned in the movie because it would ruin the purity of the amazing imaginary feat.
posted by galactain at 2:55 PM on March 19, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

One problem with the question is that the math doesn't really add up.

I dunno what route he ran, but we can use San Francisco to Virginia Beach (~2,977 miles) as a reasonable approximation. Assuming that he did not start at either coast, he would have to make 4 cross country trips to see both oceans twice. That's a total of 12,000 miles. Running that in 3 years is about 11 miles per day. Assuming he kept a very modest 15 minute pace, that's only 2.75 hours of running per day, which is hardly non-stop.

While probably not medically advisable, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility to run 11 miles every day for 3 years without injury.

Now, approaching the problem from the other end, suppose he ran, say, 8 hours per day at that 15 minute pace. That's 32 miles per day or just over 35,000 miles, which is enough to make almost 12 of those cross-country trips. In fact, it's enough to run around the continental United States 5 times. I'm not an expert, but I do not think any person could do that, no matter how motivated, without injuring themselves to the point of incapacitation part-way through.

Compared to the World Runner mentioned above, Gump would have to run 2.2x as far in 1.6 x the time. In other words, he would have to run 40% faster and keep it up for 14 months longer. I just don't think it's possible.
posted by jedicus at 3:04 PM on March 19, 2008

ImJustRick, yes, he states that he only stopped to "eat, sleep, and you know." I believe he starts running in Greenbow, Alabama, and as leotrotsky says, saw the oceans at least twice, and ran for 3+ years. I don't think it was clear where he stopped.
posted by Melismata at 3:24 PM on March 19, 2008

(But a reporter says that he stopped "only to sleep", so perhaps he ate while running.

And his pace seemed pretty slow, so that would help I would think.
posted by Melismata at 3:25 PM on March 19, 2008

jedicus, he wouldn't have to make 4 complete cross-country trips.

Assuming he started in Alabama (which i think is the case in the movie), he would only have to go from Alabama to the Atlantic (not that far), and then three complete cross country trips.
posted by drjimmy11 at 3:26 PM on March 19, 2008

These guys ran across the country in 5 months without a support crew. ~3200 miles / ~150 days = 21 miles per day.
posted by Andy's Gross Wart at 3:47 PM on March 19, 2008

There have been around 178 transcon runners, with over 200 crossings. It's a feat, but doable. There is a great website about transcon running chronicling back to Edward Payson and the great pedestrians that you can look at if you're interested.

Glen Turner is currently running across unsupported, and you can check out his website and watch his progress on the map.

There are a lot of people who run every day, you can view current streaks at the streak running homepage. These are folks who run absolutely every day: I've read stories from guys who run after surgery. The longest streak is almost 40 years. These folks might just run a couple of miles a day in some cases.

Among ultrarunners there's a kind of tongue in cheek registry called the Million Mile Ultra, the current leader of which (a woman!) has run over 65k miles.

Dean Karnazes is a good runner, but nowhere near elite as an ultrarunner. He's a bit of a chump, not mentioning people who hold the actual, verified records that he pursues the shadowy un-documented images of. Yiannis Kourus, on the other hand, is the greatest ultrarunner of the past 50 years (perhaps ever), and has a certified world record of 10 days 10 hours 30 minutes for 1000 miles. He frequently raced in quick succession, one race after another.

Meditations from the Breakdown Lane by James Shapiro is a great book about running across the country. It's a great book, a sort of exploration of work and struggle and personal achievement, which happens to be about running across the country.

In general, the more you run the more adaptable your connective tissue becomes. After running ultras for several years, I can run 25 hilly miles on a Saturday and 25 again on Sunday and not really be sore on Monday. I know people who have run 100 mile races every week for ten weeks and have been fine. There are, certainly, some people who are biomechanically better able to do this than others, and they're probably running 140 miles a week (Deena Kastor, Brian Sell) and training to win marathons.
posted by OmieWise at 4:37 PM on March 19, 2008 [5 favorites has favorites]

Tom Knoll is currently running transcon for his second time. Bonus? He's seventy-five!
posted by Ogre Lawless at 4:42 PM on March 19, 2008

Mentioned earlier was Terry fox who ran just under a marathon a day for 143 days with only one leg before he succumbed to cancer which was diagnosed during his run. So at least some of those marathons was on one leg and with deadly cancer.

Also Steve Fonyo completed the run across Canada (a bit less than 8000 kms) in 14 months, also with only one leg. It seems quite possible to me that someone could run that much each and every day essentially indefinitely.
posted by Mitheral at 4:45 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Mentioned earlier was Terry fox who ran just under a marathon a day for 143 days with only one leg before he succumbed to cancer which was diagnosed during his run. So at least some of those marathons was on one leg and with deadly cancer.

A recurrence of Terry Fox's cancer was diagnosed during the run. His leg had been amputated as part of treatment for an earlier episode of cancer.
posted by OmieWise at 5:50 PM on March 19, 2008

OmieWise is well on his way to answering this question.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:06 PM on March 19, 2008

heh, as I recall, forrest did not run non stop. All that is sure is that he neglected his personal hygiene to look more hardcore. (poser) He says himself in the movie, "I ate when I needed to eat, and I slept when I needed to sleep." So for all we know, he's rocking a 12 minute mile and going like 10 a day, which I could see a lot of people doing. which is NOT HARDCORE.

Just kidding. All I wanted to say is, he wasnt necessarily doing it dean karnazes style, all ordering a pizza to 4 miles down the road, then eating it on the fly.
posted by wuzandfuzz at 11:03 PM on March 19, 2008

I was under the impression that he was running and stopped when he was tired, ate when he was hungry, etc. That does not = running nonstop except to eat and sleep, EVEN if a reporter said that in the movie. Reporters want exciting stories.

As a runner, and after reading that it would only be 11 miles a day on average, I would say yes, it would be possible.
posted by zhivota at 8:24 PM on March 26, 2008