Sometimes you can find motivation to do your best being inspiring by the famous deeds of fictional and brave characters: if you meet him, you will feel the impulse to tell him “Run Forrest, run!”
Today our inspirational story is given by British Rob Pope story, the man who found the inspiration in Forrest Gump movie to achieve the goals that his mother had tried to stimulate since he was young: as Rob told to reporters, she used to say “do one thing in life that makes a difference“.
He is said to have watched so many times the famous movie, and especially the running scenes about 100 times, that he finally decided on September 2016 to run as his idol.
However, Rob was not stranger to running: in fact, at that time he was already the Australian Men’s Marathon champion and winner of the Liverpool Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon for the previous two years. But for him this seemed to be a whole new challenge.
The Forrest Gump itinerary allowed him to go across about 15,000 miles, for an average 40 miles per day, setting off from Alabama, like his favorite character did. However, he loved also the idea to run across America because he felt intrigued by the culture, music, movies and the people in the states.
Actually, his motivational reason to deal with this challenge were given directly by Forrest Gump behaviour: “Forrest doesn’t judge anyone on race or intelligence or standing, he just saw people as they were. So in a similar way, I’m just trying to bring a bit of sunshine to people’s lives.”
That’s why the 39-years-old veterinarian knew that only to cross the states running it won’t be enough to “make the difference”: he have been running for world peace, women’s rights, the homeless, the environment, and animals: this is the first engine which moves him to run and run, to raise money for charity.
“That’s why I’m still going. That’s my motivation.”
“I came up with this plan because I wanted to do something that people would really notice, so I could raise some big figures for charity.”
Nevertheless, not everything can be easy if you decide to run across the length of America.
During that period he had suffered the snow, temperatures over 40C and a series of nasty injuries as an inflamed Achilles or quadriceps tear, living an adventure similar to the one of the fictional Gump.
Even though the only thing that made him have a break run at the Twin Arrows Trading Post, in Arizona, finally he had to leave the journey to witness the birth of his daughter.
Rob said: “I wanted to finish this journey as a family, so I’ve flown back to be with Nadine for our baby’s birth.”
Rob actually has shown to the whole world a great example of determination, demonstrating that even the fairy stories can come true, allowing his real story to become more than a film but and inspirational reason to go on for everyone.
#SportValues #GetVal #Motivation