I’ve told several people about my plan for this walk and usually the first question that gets asked is ‘why?’

The answer is for a few reasons.  First and foremost, my adult life has consisted of nothing particularly wild. I’ve never done anything crazy, I didn’t go to any crazy parties or travel to some island in the Caribbean. I basically graduated from high school, went straight to college, graduated then got a job.  I don’t really drink often.  I’m somewhat of a recluse, I have a close group of friends but I don’t try to expand that group by going out and meeting new people.  My most recent job was a desk job so I had lots of time to think about what I wanted to do.  The boring constraint of an office cubicle lead my mind to wander to some crazy ideas, mainly walking across the U.S.  I need to push my boundaries, socially, mentally and physically. Everyone should do something crazy sometime in their life, I wanted to get mine done before I had any real responsibilities or people depending on me for their care.

Reason #2 is much more personal, my health.  I’ve been at an unhealthy weight since early high school and although I have had some good success in the past year or so I have hit somewhat of a plateau.  Doing such a long walk will strengthen just about every muscle in my body and unless I manage to eat 6000+ calories a day I will break through my plateau of weight loss and hopefully get down to a healthy size.

Reason #3…because I can.

Why so long of a walk?  I have always enjoyed walking but I absolutely hate doing it without some end point or turnaround, walking aimlessly annoys me immensely.  So I figured why not pick pretty much the farthest possible endpoint from me?  Doing so would meet my criteria of doing something crazy, being a great fitness goal and walking to an endpoint.