Most people know of someone who has run a marathon, but imagine doing four in a row. That’s what one San Diego man did when he set out to run all the way to Los Angeles.
“[I had this] crazy idea of just running from my front door to my girlfriend’s front door in L.A.,” Aron Greene, 26, said.
Crazy is an understatement, especially for someone who just started running marathons only two years ago.
“I do that drive a few times a month,” Greene said. “I was sitting on the [Interstate] 5 in traffic, I was like ‘I bet I could get there faster if I ran.'”
To complete the 100-mile trek from San Diego’s Pacific Beach neighborhood to Los Angeles, Greene needed help. Jocko Willink, a former U.S. Navy SEAL and founder of the energy drink brand JOCKO Fuel, stepped up.
JOCKO Fuel, who is also a partner of San Diego FC, covered all expenses Greene needed to cover in order to train and eventually make the journey up north.
“They did everything that was needed to get it done,” said Greene. That eventually came together in June, when he finally hit the road to Los Angeles.
However, the 26-year-old didn’t spend the 32 hours of the journey alone, as he was accompanied by his girlfriend Josie, a nurse who was there to provide medical aid if needed, and a crew of friends and photographers who encouraged him along the way.
“I felt it was easy because I had people with me,” Greene said. “If something was happening, we could stop wherever.”
At mile 83, Greene hit a wall. He started to doubt that he could finish, those along for the ride even began questioning it too. Then he remembered the one thing that powered him through the run: music.
“First time I put music in was 83 miles into it,” Greene said. “Usually it could be some kind of House [music], EDM, some rap.”
Those tunes carried the Connecticut native to his final stop.
“I was honestly, like ‘Damn this is over,'” Greene said of the moment when he finished. “I got sad, I was emotional, I was happy. It sucked, but I live for this stuff. I loved every second of it.”
The runner doesn’t plan to slow down anytime soon. “I want to run the John Muir trail, which is about 211 miles,” Greene said of his next adventure.