Stan Cottrell Discusses Life, Love and Running Across America

PHOENIX, AZ — Few humans have covered the country quite like legendary long-distance runner, Stan Cottrell.

Cottrell, who entered the Guinness Book of World Records by completing a cross-country run in 48 days in 1980, will embark on his third trans-American run in May.

He will launch his Amazing Friendship Run on Cottrell's 78th birthday, which falls on May 7, setting out on a more than 3,000-mile journey that will take him from Los Angeles eastward to Washington D.C.

Cottrell will cover the coasts in 100 days, making his first of 13 stops in Phoenix on May 12.

The long-distance titan is hoping to inspire the nation to be more active, while also connecting communities and imparting his trademark positivity along the way.

Patch talked with Cottrell about his upcoming adventure, discussing everything from how he prepares for his epic ventures to what he hopes people take away from his story.

Below is a transcript of that conversation, edited for brevity and clarity:

Q: Take me through kind of the idea behind the run. What do you hope to accomplish with your run across America?

A: Well, I've been running as far back as I can remember. And that's about 71 years, when I was chased after cows and things like that. And I'll be 78 years old on May 7.

With the Amazing Friendship Run, I'll be running 30 miles a day. And we'll finish up in Washington D.C., at the Capitol.

And so I've been doing running throughout the world, I've run across 40 different countries. And the theme has been friendship, friendship running. And I've done more than 260,000 miles of running.

But I feel like with this particular run, given where our country has been for the last year, we've all we've all suffered, we've all paid the price of having to change our lifestyles drastically and doing things so much differently.

Well, this run is symbolic of 'let's open the doors.' Let's get out and start moving and start moving emotionally, spiritually, mentally in and instead of just feeling sequestered, and feeling like there's no hope.

I tell people all the time 'discover what you do well and do more of it.' And every person has a gift to give to the world.

I know this is philosophical, but it's the truth that there is something that every person can do uniquely and wonderfully well. And I discovered a long time ago that I could, I could run long distances and just keep running and do running that would be measured by the calendar, not just a stopwatch.

And so this is one man's way of saying this is my gift back to the greatest country on this earth. And I can run and you can come out and run with me.

Let's recreate the spirit of those times when we were in elementary school called recess. Let's play together, let's run together. And somehow it'll make such good sense. And we'll be better for it.

Q: I'm curious what your thoughts are on what you'd attribute your longevity as a runner to. You've run more than 260,000 miles. How have you been able to run such long distances for so long and do what you appear to love so much for so long?

A: I think that, not everybody has to go out and run. You take for instance, back in 1980, I ran across across the United States. And I did that for a different reason. I went after the world record, and I broke the world record by about five days.

And people say 'Well, I can't run anything like it.' You don't have to. You can get out and move. And I try to encourage people, saying 'Look, just when you wake up in the morning, go out and walk seven and a half minutes in one direction and turn around and walk back seven and a half minutes.'

Do that a couple times a week. And I'm not asking you to do anything about your diet. I'm not asking you to change anything else, but just start moving. And what's going to happen they're gonna start one day they go out instead of 15 minutes, then they're going to walk 20 minutes and then then pretty much downrange all of a sudden they'll start doing 30 minutes a day.

Well, according to the American College of Sports Medicine and others, that's what they're trying to get people to do.

I've been saying this for 55 years or more, to just move for 30 minutes a day, five times a week.

And now, that seems to be the standard, just to move — and I'm not talking about getting out of breath, I'm not talking about pain or anything like that.

Whoever came up with the axiom, 'no pain, no gain,' if they're dead, let's go find their grave, get their bones and burn them. It should be, 'Be trained. Don't strain.'

And that's what exercise is about. It's about fun fitness and feeling good, not pain or feeling punished or anything like that. But I think everybody can do something you don't have to. You don't have to go out and run. It's only for about 65% of the people. anatomically.

There's a lot of people that are not designed to run, but they can walk, they can move, they can go through different planes of motion to get some exercise.

And so what what I think I've done even as a child, I was my own human performance laboratory. I was raised on a farm and they had to get me up at 5 o'clock in the morning, and this was when I was five years old.

[My dad would say], 'Get up,' you go running and herd the cows up, make them come in. And then when I was six, he would have me doing a lot of farm chores. And I would miss the school bus at least three mornings out of every five and he'd say, 'You can't get chores done, you better start hoofing it on to school.'

So you think about this little kid running over five miles three times a week to school.

And the one thing I started noticing early on, that if there were certain foods that I didn't eat, I could run better. And I found out that maybe I didn't have to eat that ham meat or that sausage and so forth in the morning, that I could eat vegetables, I could eat other things.

No, I'm not a pure vegetarian, or anything like that. But there's certain things that I noticed. The other things that I noticed growing up on that farm community, everybody smoked or to tobacco.

And it was such a disgusting thought. And so I never smoked. And I grew up in a part of the world where we had a lot of moonshine going on. And I saw people drinking a lot. And I said, 'I don't want that my life.'

And so when I was 12 years old, I won a blue ribbon at a county fair, I beat everybody. I was the smallest boy. I was four-foot-nine, and I weighed 70 pounds. And my dad thought I had worms.

He was a big old man, he had a lot of dogs, you get the old form for medicine. He gave me more medicine every month, he didn't understand about heredity.

So I won that blue ribbon. And somebody came up to me and said, You know You sure are little, but then little legs short and black. While you might just grew up to be a champion. And I said, 'What's a champion?'

So early on in life. I started modeling behaviors. And in a few days, I'll be 78 years old. And I've modeled those behaviors. And it became part of me. And well, here I am today getting ready to embark on my third run across the United States.

Q: With this being the third time you've run across the U.S., what would you say you've learned about yourself and about the communities that you've run through?

A: The one thing that I think that stands out most in my mind is how similar we all are. There's not a one of us that doesn't deal with the same themes in life.

Whether it's financial, moral, relational, ethical, philosophical, vocational, educational, the same themes. And the accents might be a little bit different in different parts of the country.

If you were in the backwoods of Kentucky where I'm from, some might think it's a third world country or something, but there's certain styles of living and you've adapted to but how similar we are.

We are all created from the same clay. We go through the parade of the seasons. I noticed the young boys at 17 years old still look at the young girls, and their little eyes just light up and they giggle and all that other kind of stuff like the boys from my era did.

And people cry with the same bitter tears, or tears of joy, either one. And that people are passionate, they hit their dreams and it's about living life to its fullest every day.

Every day, I wake up, and I'm jumping up and down and I'm screaming 'Yes!' because it's a brand new day.

And when I talk about miracles some people say, 'Well, I never have a miracle.' And I say, 'Well, you woke up this morning, didn't you? That's your first miracle.'

So it's an attitude. It's your attitude toward life. And I think one of the things that I tried to do is to ignite a spark in someone that they are unique. They are a divine original. They have they have a gift, they have a treasure to get to the world no one else can give them.

Q: I'm looking at the cities you're going through. And I'm curious to kind of get your opinion on how you pick the cities to stop and across the country?

A: Well, I have an incredible team of people that have worked with me this time. So many times, I've looked like a blindfolded hurdle runner. I guess because I've been doing everything myself.

And it is just amazing. The people that have come around me that I'm surrounded with that bring mind-boggling talent and vision and perspective.

And the opportunity to reach as many people face-to-face as we possibly can. I know some people have run across the United States from coast-to-coast, and it is beautiful and wonderful in every way.

But there's parts of this country that you can run across and and you think you're on the backside of the moon for 1,000 miles. And so we've tried to make it this time so that we can at least reach as many people as possible. And so that's how that was how that came about.

Q: I'll let you go on this. What would you tell the people of Phoenix as to why they should come out and run with you on May 12, when you're going to be going through the Valley?

A: Oh, come on out and run with us. Lord, I will be tickled to death to see you and and it's about, wake up America, let's get moving America, let's send a message that America is alive and well.

And we have a message to give to the world that this virus thing may have knocked us down a little bit, but it didn't knock us out.

And we're up and we're vibrant. And it's a message to show the world and to show ourselves that America is the greatest land of all. And we have a message each one of us has a unique, unique message of hope.

And the role of a leader is to keep hope alive. And that's what we're doing, one-by-one, let's get together and send a big message to to the rest of the world. That hope is very much alive here in the United States.