“It’s like crossing an entire country. There’s so many different experiences in a single run…farmland, desert, mountains, and city. It was amazing.” — Matt Johnson on running across Texas in just 17 days
Matt Johnson, Kane Footwear athlete, fitness coach, and accomplished distance runner/triathlete completed his toughest endurance challenge yet. From October 1 to 18, Johnson crossed the state of Texas in 17 days, averaging over 50 miles per day. This run raised nearly $30,000 for Valorfit, a nationally recognized charity supporting veterans.
While this was his longest run to date at 841.92 miles (his previous longest was the 100-mile Leadville Trail 100), Johnson is no stranger to exploring new limits and running with purpose. In only three years of competitive running, Johnson has already won a marathon, completed 100 miles, run across Texas, and perhaps most importantly—continues to inspire runners around the country to join the sport.
Influencer or elite?
Johnson’s social media following (which includes 247,000 Instagram followers alone!) not only has monetary value but also the potential to influence the running community and beyond. For Johnson, this large following has made it difficult for him to find his place in the running community, “I don’t look at myself as an influencer, but I don’t look at myself as an elite athlete either. I’m not like Joe McConaughy, Sally McRae, Courtney Dauwalter, or Zach Bitter. But I also don’t see myself as an influencer like Jeremy Miller. I try to find a difference between the two and have found myself somewhere in the middle ground.” Managing these ‘mega’ media accounts is much more nuanced than most realize.”
Ultimately, Johnson’s search to find his place has led him to embrace the experience of being authentic to himself—a “normal person” pushing himself to do extraordinary things. Johnson explains this focus, “I see my mission most as just connecting with normal people. Motivating moms, military members, or any walks of life to get off the couch. I’m not strict like a fitness influencer and I don’t curate my content. I share everything I do. I enjoy having a beer or smoke every now and again, yet I also want to show people that they can do amazing things. More than they ever imagined.”
Running sponge
Johnson began his running journey in 2021 on an active-duty recruiting job for the US Military. His position was based in Roanoke, VA, in close proximity to access points on the Appalachian Trail. He quickly discovered a passion for running on this iconic trail, “I found my love for trail running in Roanoke. I learned that it’s a beautiful sport that’s less about genetics and more about having a really good work ethic. It’s about having goals and the passion to pursue dreams.”
Johnson found early success in his first year as a runner, finishing a 5-kilometer race in an impressive sixteen minutes with no formal training. He connected with running coach Jeff Cunningham, who encouraged him to pursue the sport further. Although he didn’t know much at the time about the sport (and admits terms such as threshold, FKT, tempo and VO2 max went over his head), Johnson quickly became a student of the sport. He searched online and read everything he could about running. His largest inspiration came from Nick Bare and his company Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN), where he learned the majority of his training and nutrition techniques for long distance running.
After only a year of running, Johnson signed up for a BPN-sponsored marathon in Texas in 2022. He ran an impressive time of 2:59:52 for his first marathon. Bare, the race director of this event, saw potential in Johnson and offered him an ambassador position in the company. Bare also connected Johnson with professional triathlete coach Natasha Van Der Merwe, who he hired as his coach. With new professional support, Johnson’s endurance sports career would soon jump to another level.
More than miles
“We’re going to raise the most money you’ve had in a single donation.” —Johnson to Valorfit
Johnson became excited by the endless possible ways to challenge himself in the sport of running. In 2022, he decided to complete a nearly 50-mile charity run across his home state of Iowa, running from the capitol in Des Moines to the Knoxville Raceway (Johnson raced sprint cars on this track in his youth and was a self-described “adrenaline junkie”). The run raised over $8,500 for Wounded Heroes, a local 501(c)(3) nonprofit supporting “Heroes…current and former members of the United States Armed Forces, police, firefighters, paramedics, EMS personnel and healthcare workers.” The feeling of running for a cause was something Johnson wanted more of. In 2023, he completed another successful charity in Avalon, New Jersey, to raise money for Valorfit, a nationally recognized organization supporting veterans.
With two consecutive years of charity-inspired runs, Johnson planned to continue this trend in 2024—but this time to run farther and raise more money than he ever had. In 2023, Johnson’s social media platform had nearly doubled in six months, and he wanted to leverage this new following to support a meaningful cause on a larger scale, “I leaned more into being a content creator for this project. I kept wondering how I could use my platform for good. That’s when I reached out to the founder of Valorfit and proposed this idea to run across Texas. I knew I could do more to support them and their mission.”
Stepping up
Johnson had completed Ironmans, his first 100-mile race (the Leadville Trail 100), yet he lacked the experience with multi-day endurance challenges that running nearly 850 miles across Texas would require. In preparation for this run, Johnson reached out to 200 Mile race Triple Crown winner Mike McKnight to coach him. Under McKnight’s guidance, Johnson completed back-to-back 30-mile training days and several 150-mile training weeks to prepare his body for the kind of fatigue he would experience on this journey.
Johnson also cites his shoe sponsor, Kane Footwear, as a key part of his recovery in this journey, “Kane Footwear has been HUGE in my recovery leading up to the Run Across Texas. During my training, I have been averaging running 140+ miles per week. If I am not running, I am wearing my Kanes. They help keep my legs fresh between my double sessions.”
Following the lonestar
“Does running across this state make me hate it? Absolutely not. It makes me love it even more.” — Johnson
Running across Texas was not just a charity run. It was a route that had personal meaning to Johnson. In 2023, he moved to Austin, TX, in search of finding himself. Johnson married young (18 and 20 years old) and divorced, transitioned out of a stable ten-year career in the US military, and was rediscovering himself as an endurance athlete at only twenty-eight years old. Johnson dreamt of turning his running into a full-time career and decided to move to Austin to spend more time training with his coach and other BPN athletes based there. Johnson describes his move to Austin: “I moved there with a tote, a single laundry basket of clothes, my dog, and $3,000 in the bank account. I told myself, ‘I’m going to figure it out.’”
While it was a scary time, it was the first time Johnson had “absolutely nothing holding me anywhere.” Austin was the first place he’d chosen to live as an adult and not moved to for the military, school, or family reasons.
Johnson found much support from his local Texas communities on his seventeen-day run across his new home state, “I was having foot issues, and as soon as word got out, the local Midland Running Store sent me three pairs of new shoes! Then as we were running through Austin, another running shop sent me three more pairs! We also had people put groceries in our support crew vans…The support in Texas was unreal.” In addition to the support of locals along the route, Johnson had a four-person team to crew him along the journey.
Military strong
While Johnson sees his place in the running community, he admits he owes much of who he is today to his time spent in the military. Johnson shares what he’s learned from his ten years in service to the US military, “The military provided me with discipline. It taught me how to build myself up after being broken down and showed me what I’m capable of. It’s helped me feel comfortable in tough situations because I have learned techniques to get myself out of trouble.”
While he grew from his time in the military, he admits that the self-expression he’s found through running was something he never discovered in uniform, “I love being different. But in the military, I spent so much time being told what I needed to wear, where I needed to be, when I needed to be there, what I needed to look like, and how I needed to act. While I valued that, I never had a chance to be myself. Now, I want people to see me for me. I’m not someone who’s scripted or cliche. I want to be me and show others that being you is a very valuable thing in this world.”
David Goggins, ex-military figure turned ultrarunner, public speaker, and author, served as a major inspiration for Johnson, who he related to throughout his military and ultra running journeys, “I didn’t relate to David Goggins as much on the ‘stay-hard’ aspect that many people do, but more on the way he encouraged me to get my shoes on everyday and get out the door. If this guy could go through as much as he did and still train, why couldn’t I? I found myself making too many excuses. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to Goggin’s book.” Johnson cites Goggin’s memoir, Can’t Hurt Me, Chapter Seven, “Overcoming the Mind,” as a personal favorite section that he continues to reread.
Of the thousands of followers supporting Johnson on his run across Texas, one of the most special was Goggins, who made multiple comments on social media and congratulated Johnson on his finish. Johnson says about Goggin’s support, “It was a truly full circle moment for me. He very much turned me into what I am today. Whenever I find things getting hard, I turn to his writing and story.”
Curious to learn more about Johnson? Follow him on his social media and learn more about his run across Texas here.
All photos in this article have been generously provided by Matt Johnson.
