Meet the Briton running 6,000 miles across America, dodging tarantulas, monsoons and armed police

Tarantulas, 50°C heat, flash floods and SWAT cars at the Mexican border. It has been an eventful six months for Jamie McDonald, who is currently half way through a 6,000-mile coast-to-coast solo run across the United States.

The 32-year-old will run the equivalent of 230 marathons through fifteen states in 365 days; since April, he has already completed 115 marathons. His route begun at the westernmost point of the United States at Cape Alava in Washington State, and will finish at West Quoddy Head Lighthouse in Maine.

McDonald spent the first nine years of his life in and out of hospital with the rare spinal condition, syringomyelia. Combined with a weak immune system and epilepsy, doctors feared that he may lose his mobility altogether. At nine years old his symptoms eased, and he now undergoes physical feats (typically dressed as his superhero alter-ego, ‘Adventureman’) to fundraise for childrens’ charities.

In recent projects Jamie has run the length of Canada, cycled from Bangkok to Gloucester and won the Guinness World Record for the longest consecutive static bike ride (268 hours, 32 minutes and 44 seconds, no less).

We caught up with Jamie to hear how he became 'Adventureman', and to find out how his journey across the United States is going so far.

“It started when I pulled out of buying a house”

I taught tennis for a living and I saved up ￡20,000 to put a deposit on a house. I went to go and put the deposit down, but then I got a gut feeling in my stomach - something’s wrong. So I ended up pulling out. I ended up buying a bicycle for ￡50 - it was one of the worst bikes known to man - and I flew to Bangkok. From there, I cycled 14,000 miles back to Gloucester, to fundraise for the Gloucester Childrens’ Hospital.

“I thrive on pain"

I don’t know if it goes back to being sick as a kid, but my dad always says: “If you can go through that kind of pain, you can go through anything”. Being on that static bike for eleven days, my bum was so sore. I was crying. There must be an element where I thrive on pain.

“I’ve just run through the hottest part of the desert”

We’re talking 50°C plus. That really slowed me down, so I had to run every night for four months. I was running in monsoon season and every night there were lightning bolts and thunderstorms all around me. I was in the middle of the desert pushing a metal pram, of all things.

“You don’t realise you’re lonely until you get human contact”

Then you realise, wow - I’ve gone days without seeing anyone. But the Americans, particularly in Texas, are so warm and people often invite me into their homes. I’ve got a live tracker going and people are coming out every single day to come and say hi and to make a donation. I feel like the Americans are really getting behind it

“One guy drove over 400 miles to fix lights onto my pram”

His name was Jim. I’d stayed with him and his wife earlier in the trip when he invited me into his home for the night. Later, when he realised I was nearing the desert, he drove to give me some lights. He knew I was going to need really great lights as I would need to run at night for months to get away from the heat (even though it was still 40°C plus at night). He drove over 400 miles to fix and wire lights onto my pram. I just couldn’t believe it. There and back, that’s the equivalent of driving from Lands End to John O’Groats, just to deliver some lights.

“In California I ran through trees as high as skyscrapers”

I would say the most beautiful place so far was the redwood forests in northern California. Before I got there I thought, they’re just trees. But I was running through the avenue of giants, trees as high as skyscrapers, and it was just spectacular. For beauty, that is a place I would definitely recommend. The trees are so big that there’s one tourist attraction where cars can actually drive through the tree trunks.

“At the Mexican border, a silhouette of a man appeared…”

It was one o clock in the morning. It was pitch black and I thought, what’s he doing out here at this time? He asked me what I was doing out here and I told him I’m running across America - but I thought there’s no way he’s going to believe me. It sounds just ridiculous. He told me he wouldn’t be surprised if the border patrol came out and paid me a visit. He started shining a torch on me and I started running. Five minutes later a SWAT team swooped in. Five vehicles, two quadbikes. They checked my passport and questioned me on what I was doing. I looked down at myself and all I had on was a pair of shorts and this fluorescent netted vest with nothing underneath. I looked like Freddy Mercury.

“A woman wound down the window and said, there’s a mountain lion back there”

This was one of the scariest moments. I was in the tiniest town in the desert. I got running at about 11pm. A car drove by and then I saw them turning around and driving back up to me. The woman wound down the window and said: “are you running that way”? I said I was. She said: “Right, I think it’s important to let you know that five minutes down the road we saw a mountain lion…"

“Then I hit a tarantulas nest”

So I got this little pen knife out, which was just ridiculous really, and I started running again. I was so on edge. I had my headtorch on and when you really listen to the desert, it sounds like it’s going to kill you at any time. I kept shining the torch on every bit of noise and after an hour I heard this noise, shone the torch and saw this massive tarantula on the side of the road. Forget the mountain lion, I’m petrified of spiders. As I shone the torch around it there were hundreds of tarantulas everywhere. I’d hit some kind of nest. I just started sprinting. It was horror.

“There was a flash flood”

Four days ago some Canadians flew from Canada just to join me for a couple of days. They kindly treated me to a hotel because they knew I was roughing it. It stormed through the night and the next morning we woke up and right next to the hotel there was this trailer park where normally I would have camped. It was completely washed out. They managed to rescue 20 people but three people died in the flood. If it wasn’t for the Canadians who flew out to treat me, I would have been caught out camping in that storm.

You can track Jamie McDonald’s run across the USA here and help him reach his fundraising goal here. He is also posting daily on Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.