Cameron Balser, his face nearly lost in a wild red beard, polished off a breakfast burrito someone gave him at Diablo Lake Vista Point along Highway 20 at the end of May. He then picked up his pace, effortlessly trotting up the Cascades as he pulled a cart with his belongings behind him.
Balser, 32, started his continuous, unsupported run around the U.S. on Oct. 9, 2023. Since leaving Cleveland, Ohio, he has run an average of 37.2 miles per day, effectively completing 326 marathons and climbing 332,787 feet — the equivalent of scaling Mount Everest a dozen times.
In the process of wearing out 26 pairs of shoes, he has burned about 1.46 million calories.
Remarkably, he’s only taken 15 rest days.
“There’s magic in doing what you love,” Balser said, his blue eyes shining. “There are so many areas in America that are just breathtaking.”
Balser grew up in Swayzee, Indiana, about 90 minutes north of Indianapolis — though he now lives in Kokomo. He fell in love with running when he was about 13 or 14 years old.
He started running marathons and ultra-marathons. Then, he started thinking about running across the entire country.
The idea evolved into running not across the country — about 3,000 miles — but around the country: roughly 11,500 miles. Balser is pretty sure that he will be the first person to complete the solo U.S. circumnavigation in one continuous effort.
While Balser is sponsored by the Indiana-based Meshingomesia Track Club, the trip has also been funded through grassroots donations from a wide variety of people, including those he’s met along the way. He estimates the whole trip will cost him between $15,000-$20,000.
“I wanted to show how much love was out there in the world,” Balser said, noting that he was also chasing adventure. “It’s everywhere, every state, I’ve just seen kindness.”
Balsar explained that he’s witnessed an abundance of compassion, not only strangers helping him, but strangers helping each other. A few weeks ago, he watched a man cover the bill for a woman in front of him at a grocery store when she couldn’t afford it.
There is something about the pace of moving through the world on foot, without a timetable, that has allowed him to slow down and witness such kindness, he said.
That sort of goodwill makes a huge difference for someone embarking on a trip without built-in support. Often, when athletes embark on an epic undertaking, they have a support crew that follows the athlete, providing nutrients, water, mechanical assistance and logistical support.
Balser doesn’t have that. But, he has met hundreds of people who have helped him along the way. He estimated that people provided him with a place to stay, a shower and often breakfast for about half the nights he’s been on the road.
“I told my mom I always feel like I’m home,” Balser said.
Balser, wearing a tattered Bubba Gump Shrimping Company hat, said the ethos of the fictional character Forrest Gump resonates with him, as they both embrace a nonjudgmental, unconditional love for the world around them.
“I just don’t have a shrimp boat, yet,” he said.
While it is not unusual for him to find a place to crash with a freshly minted friend, just as often Balser ends up “stealth camping” — discretely setting up his tent somewhere legal but not in a campground.
Balser’s camping gear, and everything else he’s not wearing, is packed into a two-wheeled cart that attaches to his waist. After more than 230 days of running, he’s accustomed to the weight, but the wideness of the cart has made navigating narrow roads particularly treacherous, he explained.
“I would always sprint down some of those just to get out of the way,” he said.
Unlike the Northwest, where there are rivers and creeks for Balser to filter his drinking water, the Southwest sections of the run were dominated by dry, barren landscapes. This was especially true west of Austin, Texas, where long stretches of road are without water access.
Balser recalls a 100-mile section in Texas where the only water he could identify was what appeared on Google Maps to be a cattle trough about 50 miles in.
“I took the chance,” he said. “When I went over the mountain and then came down I could see all the cattle around it.”
A rancher who spotted him filtering the water ended up showing him where the water source was and giving him some additional food and water.
After crossing the Southwest, Balser arrived in Santa Monica in time to participate in an underground race known as The Speed Project. A team he put together flew out to support him as he dashed the 341 miles to Las Vegas in just under 79 hours.
Afterward, he took a couple of days off, then flew back to Santa Monica to resume his journey. From there, he headed for Sedro-Woolley before turning back east on the scenic Highway 20. He made his way through Washington Pass on May 25. He’s now somewhere in Montana, and planning on finishing the last week of July.
One of the toughest moments for the runner came in the Seattle area, when a tooth infection threatened his trip.
“I am out here alone, so the decisions were pretty tough,” he said, recalling the weight of deciding whether or not to call for help and have someone pick him up. “The pain was so bad I ended up passing out in my tent.”
He was able to make it to Redmond by foot. There, he got antibiotics and had the tooth pulled. One day of rest later, he was back on the road, doing what he loved.
Isaac Stone Simonelli is CDN’s enterprise/investigations reporter; reach him at isaacsimonelli@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 127.
