Navy officer on coast-to-coast run to raise mental health awareness passes through New Mexico

Mar. 18—PILAR — Paul Johnson set out to break the world record March 1 as the fastest person to run across the country.

At his current pace, Johnson will likely fall short.

But the 28-year-old is undeterred.

"The sun's shining — it's a blue-bird day," Johnson said early Monday as he trotted along N.M. 68 on his way to Taos. He had logged nearly 1,000 miles on foot over the past 17 days, with a start in Southern California.

Later Monday, he would mark a major milestone just outside Taos — his 1,000th mile — and celebrate the feat on his Instagram account.

Johnson has a seven-member support crew that includes his mother, a physical therapist, filmmakers and several fellow military veterans. One of their primary jobs: keeping him fed on the road.

They help ease the pressure.

Although he was chasing the title of world record holder, Johnson, an active duty lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, said the most important part of his journey was raising awareness about mental health, something he struggles with personally.

"Running I discovered about a year and a half ago, and it just kind of gives me a break from all those feelings. And quite honestly, doing this nonstop for the past 17 days, I really haven't had any issues," he said.

"It's like running is my meditation," Johnson said.

He also set out to raise $1 million for Team Red, White and Blue, a nonprofit with a mission to inspire veterans to be physically active in their post-military life.

"That's what he's doing in such a big way," said Mike Erwin, the nonprofit's founder and executive director.

"He is inspiring other people to care about veterans. He's inspiring service members and veterans to tap into the power of physical activity in their own life ... and raising money by people making small donations here and there," Erwin said. "All those things added together have created just this incredible energy and momentum around what he's doing."

Johnson so far has raised nearly $200,000 for the nonprofit.

"From our eyes, he's already succeeded, but I know he wants to do more," Erwin said.

"You know, he's fully funded this whole thing himself," Erwin added. "All the money is coming to Team Red, White and Blue, and it's a huge, generous, generous thing to do because it's not cheap. To do this, you got all the logistics and the food and all that, so yeah, we're super thankful and pumped."

The road hasn't been easy.

Johnson said it was frustrating when he realized he wasn't going to beat the record set by Pete Kostelnick, who completed the roughly 3,100-mile trek from San Francisco to New York in 42 days, 6 hours and 30 minutes in 2016.

Besting Kostelnick's record would have required Johnson to run an average of 75 miles a day.

"We made mistakes in the desert — we've learned from it," Johnson said.

"But ultimately ... when we were planning this, I told [the crew], 'If we're not having fun out here, we're doing it wrong.' And I'll tell you what, nobody was having fun, and everybody was [tired]," he said. "And as soon as I told them we weren't going for the record anymore and that they could get some extra sleep that night, the entire mood and morale shifted.

"Yeah, it sucks, but there's always next time, and we're still out here doing an awesome thing," he said.

Johnson told outsideonline.com the idea of trying to beat Kostelnick's record came after he decided to embark on the journey.

"I knew if we wanted to get more attention, we'd have to go big on this," Johnson told the news outlet. "At first we had to figure out if it was even possible to get the record. I'm not an elite athlete. ... But the transcontinental is unique in that it's not about running fast, it's just about being able to take the beating everyday."

The hardest part of the run has been the daily food intake, Johnson said during Monday's interview, during which he kept moving.

"My crew basically has to force feed me every 10 minutes," he said, adding he wouldn't have enough energy to keep going otherwise.

"Like physically, eating all the food is pretty tough," he said.

During a brief stop near Pilar, Rob Sembiante, Johnson's crew chief and a former Navy special operations diver, handed him a bottle of electrolytes and a chocolate-covered doughnut, which Johnson scarfed down in a matter of moments.

Johnson, who is 5-foot-10 and started the run weighing 175 pounds, said he's maintained his weight, though there is a caveat.

"We've only weighed me at night after eating like a pint of ice cream, a bunch of water and everything else," he said. "... But I'm definitely losing my love handles."

Johnson said he's encountered treacherous weather that started almost from the get-go, including heavy snow in Northern New Mexico.

"Nothing has been any worse than what I've trained in, in Newport, R.I., living on the coast there in the Northeast," he said.

"We had rain the second day. We got caught in about a 50 mph sandstorm with 10-foot visibility on the second day as well. We had to do reroutes a couple of times. We had 12-plus inches of snow last night. Three days ago, we had sustained 35 mph headwinds the entire day," he said.

Johnson, who was running through the Youngsville area on N.M. 96 west of Abiquiú on Sunday, said he had been to New Mexico before.

"I've driven through it, but mostly at night, so this is my first time actually visiting," he said.

The scenery of Northern New Mexico was "a lot better than when I first entered the state," he added.

An online tracker — which logs his daily miles, speed, elevation gain, calories and the cities he's run through — shows Johnson entered New Mexico near Gallup.

The tracker shows Johnson's projected finish time at 52 days, 6 hours and 21 minutes. But he said his new goal is to reach New York in 50 days total.

Asked whether he's reached a point where he wanted to give up on his coast-to-coast quest, Johnson said each step is a challenge.

"Every day I ask myself, 'Why is the United States so damn big?' " he said.

Johnson compared his run across the country to an ultramarathon, which he called an "incredible sport."

"There's so many highs, there's so many lows," he said.

"There are times every day that I want to quit, but I gotta keep moving," Johnson said as he began the steep ascent to Taos, with motorists whizzing by.

"Right now, I've got 6,000 feet of climbing to do to get to the top of Taos in the next 30 miles, so the rest of the day is going to be a grind," he said. "But we're going to hit our highest elevation of the entire run today, and it will literally be all downhill from there."

Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.

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