The 3150 mile/100 day run across the USA between May 1st and August 8th 2025 requires a support team of volunteers to help make it a success. Duties range from driving a motorhome, cooking, cleaning, shopping for supplies and ensuring that the runner gets his daily miles run!
The recruitment campaign has been a huge success so far. Thank you to everyone who has applied over the last 11 months and to those who made it through on to the team. The interest shown has been brilliant. There is at least one person on the team for the entire 100 days.
There now remains just a few gaps in the support team rota:
- 14th May 2025 to 27th June 2025 - Wheeling, West Virginia to Walsenburg, Colorado.
- 25th July 2025 to 1st August 2025 - Las Vegas, Nevada to Olancha, California via Death Valley. Only people who will be able to fulfil support team duties in extreme temperatures will be suitable for this section.
Duties on the team will be carried out against a backdrop of some of the most beautifully challenging and fascinating landscape in the USA. Not only is this a chance of a lifetime but it's a chance to play a key part in the success of a run that aims to raise at least £60,000 for St. Benedict's Hospice (Charity No. 1019410) in memory of my Mam and Dad.
- The aim is to have 2 people on the support team at any one time.
- Daily duties include driving a motor home, cooking (mainly porridge and omelettes), motorhome admin (such as emptying waste, filling water and fuel) and that's pretty much the basic requirement.
- All support team crew are unpaid volunteers like myself. We have retired police officers, a software developer, a retired banker, a B&B owner and a business owner among our ranks already. The ages range from 40 - 67 currently.
- Support team crew are responsible for getting to the point of the run when needed and meeting up with the motorhome. For some this is straight forward (for example one lady is leaving at Indianapolis very close to the airport. One man is taking a 2 hour bus journey to Pittsburgh to fly out of there. The not so straight forward examples are where one man flies into Las Vegas, hires a car, drives 200 miles to join the tour (due to poor transport links) and gives the hire car to the outgoing support team to return to Las Vegas and fly out of there.
- Overnight parking spots vary from RV parks (for which there is very limited budget) to Walmart parking lots to spaces at the side of the road.
- The first gap in the rota is through the American Mid West. There are many minor roads. We are expecting low volumes of traffic and the driving should be quite straightforward.
- Once the team are in the motorhome the only expenses you'll incur are your own food requirements. There is no charge for staying in the motorhome. That's obvious to me but not to everyone and is worth stating.
- A typical day starts at 0600 - 0630 for porridge. Once I set off running then the motorhome will drive to a meeting point ahead on the route. The number of stops will vary. The running day is usually split into two sections with lunch in the middle (and usually a sleep for me). The aim is to finish running, update the blog, edit and upload video and be asleep by 2200 ready to do it all over again.
- We don't allow the consumption of alcohol while on the tour.
- A detailed route plan is available now. I'm adding various data to it constantly such as suggested overnight stops, RV waste dump locations, supermarkets etc.
- The only age restriction is to be 21 to 72 for motorhome insurance purposes.
- The current team are committing between 2 and 4 weeks on the tour.
- We have a support team Whatsapp channel for questions and knowledge sharing. We will be holding an online support team meeting in June for the first time with plans for at least 2 more before the run starts to talk through plans, answer questions etc.
- There are opportunities to join me running if you so wish.
If you are fit and healthy, hold a driving license, have a positive attitude, have good problem solving skills and can commit at least 14/8 days to the tour in the Midwest/Death Valley respectively this could be for you.
If you're interested in applying then please complete the form below. Even if you're not 100% sure about joining the team at this stage please apply anyway and we can have an informal discussion where there will be an opportunity to ask any questions that you may have.
