‘F’ is for feet. Of course, it had to be. As I type this post, some 41 days since the run across the USA finished, there has been some progress in terms of the recovery of my feet.
To understand what happened in the USA this summer you really have to go back 12 years.
The damage to my feet began in earnest during the run across Australia in 2013. The endless miles of searing tarmac left them battered and broken. Nails were lost, skin was torn apart, nerves damaged and joints pushed far beyond what they were ever designed to endure. Those scars never truly healed. From that moment on, every run I attempted carried the weight of the punishment my feet had absorbed crossing that vast continent.
When I took on Europe in 2016, those old injuries returned with a vengeance. What should have been a new challenge quickly turned into a battle with the legacy of Australia. Blisters formed on top of scar tissue, tendons ached from strain and infections made even the smallest step painful. By 2018, another European crossing had compounded the damage further. My feet had grown fragile, almost permanently inflamed, with sharp nerve pain and deep bruising never far away.
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All of that history came together in the USA this summer. It was there that every mile seemed to call back to the suffering of Australia and Europe, but it was also there that resilience reached its peak. My feet were scarred, swollen, and often unrecognisable (apologies again for the photos that you had to endure on my blog), yet they still carried me forward. Every step across America was not just a physical act, but a statement of defiance against the years of pain and damage that had built up.
The USA run became the ultimate test. Not of how broken my feet were, but of how much strength I could summon from their brokenness. They were no longer the feet I started with in 2013, but they were the feet that had endured deserts, mountains, highways and oceans of pain. To reach Forrest Gump Point, to keep moving in spite of everything, was the true climax of resilience. My feet may always carry the scars, but they also carry the proof of what can be endured when the will to keep going is stronger than the damage done.
As I sit at home writing this, my feet tell the whole story. They’re ugly, scarred, and often painful. But they’ve carried me across continents when common sense said they shouldn’t. I’ll probably never walk without feeling them remind me of what I’ve done. But maybe that’s the point. Every ache is part of the price I paid to keep going when it would’ve been easier to stop.
Despite all that, with the money raised for St. Benedict’s Hospice and the other charities, I have zero regrets. I would do it all again in a heartbeat. The kind people that I’ve met along the way and the donations from people I will never meet, is a genuinely incredible thing. If you are one of those people, thank you again for your amazing kindness and generosity.
If you’d like to sponsor this years run across the USA then there is still time to do that in aid of St. Benedict’s Hospice at www.justgiving.com/page/rungeordierun2025.
