Background
Jesper Olsen is a 33 year
old man from Copenhagen, Denmark. On 1
January 2004, he set off from Greenwich, England
in an attempt to be the first documented person
to run around the world. His website is
at:
http://www.worldrun.org/. (Be sure to
read his daily reports!)
After running for 16
months, Jesper arrived in Canada on Friday 15
April 2005. Some local ultramarathon
runners hosted him for a few days as he paused
to compete in the Vancouver Sun Run and take one
of 14 scheduled days off during his 2 year world
run attempt. At an informal pot luck
dinner, Jesper learned what it meant to "sing
for your supper" and shared his inspiring story.
In brief, Jesper tries to
run an average of 50-kilomteres every day.
He wants to make it home to Copenhagen for
Christmas. He plans to end the North
American leg of his trip in New York. He
has budgeted roughly 90 days to cross Canada by the
most direct way possible. While he has
become quite accustomed to running alone,
sleeping in ditches and eating cold spaghetti
from a can, he confided in us that he'd sure
love some company, the occasional home-cooked
meal and a clean, dry bed from time to time.
He obtained the commitment
from all present that they would do whatever
they could to make his cross-Canada leg
memorable. Some photos from the evening
are at:
www.flickr.com/photos/37954136@N00/sets/240084/
Objective of this
Website
A growing number of people
across Canada have offered to help Jesper.
Their questions are almost always, "When will he
be in my neighborhood?" and "How can I contact
him". The objective of this website is to
answer those questions. We also hope that it
will serve to document his trip for others who
may one day try to run across Canada.
Every week between now and
the time Jesper crosses the border back into the
United States, I will update this route to
reflect his progress and estimated arrival
times. I will also aim to include the
names of the people who helped along the way, so
that this website becomes a virtual scrapbook of
Jesper's trans-Canada leg that he can refer to
once he's back home. If you have any
photos of you or your friends with Jesper or any
stories you'd like to share about your time with
him, please send them to me and I'll post them
on the photo gallery.
Sibylle Tinsel
North Vancouver, British
Columbia
PS: I strongly
encourage you to bookmark this website URL and
share it with anyone you feel might be
interested in helping Jesper
Contacting Jesper
We are hoping that people
with a bit of time on their hands will step
forward to "adopt" Jesper for a day or
two as he
crosses their part of Canada. He would
really appreciate any information about his
planned route, running events and other
activates he might participate in and, most
importantly, people to run with.
Kevin Thomson of Vancouver
has stepped forward to help Jesper organize his
run while in Canada. Please contact Kevin
directly to coordinate with Jesper: Kevin
Thomson - 604-816-1731 -
kevin@creativecrossings.com
Thanks to
the following people for help with
planning, running, hosting, feeding and
moral support during the Canadian
section of the run:
-
Peter Rietveld (pacer), John Little,
Sarah Galazin (pacers), Karl Jensen
(Crew), John Payne (crew), Kevin
Thomson (Logistics), the Vancouver
Hash House Harriers, Sue & Henry (Kwokwehala
Lodge), Wayne Richardson
