2014 AA Marathon

Barclay Oudersluys (bib No. 61) finished fourth in the 2014 Ann Arbor Marathon. The University of Michigan graduate plans on running from California to Maine this summer in 100 days, an undertaking he's dubbed Project Gump.

(The Ann Arbor News File Photo)

Barclay Oudersluys is a recent University of Michigan nuclear engineering graduate who starts law school at the University of California-Berkeley in the fall, but that's not the toughest challenge he'll encounter before the end of the year.

On Saturday, May 9, the Birmingham native will begin a 3,200-mile run from California's Santa Monica Yacht Harbor and Pier to Marshall Point Lighthouse in Maine. He is giving himself 100 days to do the run, which means he'll have to foot close to 32 miles every single day.

The route is similar to the one Tom Hanks' character ran in the 1994 box office smash "Forrest Gump," and because of that, Oudersluys is calling the 100-day run Project Gump.

Although Forrest's route wasn't completely mapped out in the movie--and due to contextual clues from the movie, it's evident that his run took him from coast to coast multiple times--the starting and ending points are distinct.

His route will take him through California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Barclay Oudersluys sits on the porch of his home in Ann Arbor before training on a winter day. Oudersluys plans to run across the country for Project Gump, a tribute to his favorite movie Forrest Gump, and to raise $10,000 for Sara and Ryan Hall's Steps Foundation this summer.

"I don't really know what made me want to do it," Oudersluys said, noting that he didn't start running much until just a few years ago. "Forrest Gump is my favorite movie. And so when I decided to do this run, I looked up the two points where he had gone to and decided then."

In his few years as a runner, Oudersluys has done a triathlon, an ironman race, the Spartan Race, the Chicago Marathon, the Michigan Ultramarathon, the Ann Arbor Marathon, and the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run.

His training regimen for his Project Gump run entails running 15 miles in the morning four days a week, and adding another five or 10 miles in the evening on those days.

"I haven't had any injuries, so that's been good. I think the biggest challenge is the overall buildup. Running 30 miles one day is fine, but it's just going to be about how long and how well I hold up over the course of the entire 100 days," he said.

"I've talked with my doctor and a running analyst and they said I should be fine doing it."

Oudersluys said one of the biggest adjustments he'll have to make is taking in enough calories required to fuel his daily runs. He said that he would need to eat upwards of 6,000 calories per day and that his daily diet will consist of "a lot of rice, granola, tuna fish and chicken, nut butters and dried fruits," among other things.

Each day, Oudersluys said he plans to wake up before the sun and run about 20 miles before it gets too hot outside. From there he will eat, nap, recuperate, eat more and nap more before running another 10 to 15 miles in the evening.

"I'm going to have a friend driving my van to meet me at spots along the way and I've talked with a couple running groups who will run with me certain days throughout the trip," he said.

"I've gotten great feedback from friends and family I've told about this. No one has had anything negative to say, so that's really been great."

Other than completing this task for his personal enjoyment, Oudersluys is also interested in raising $10,000 for the nonprofit Hall STEPS Foundation, which was started by professional runners Ryan and Sara Hall in order to fight global poverty by improving health care for impoverished people.

"It's just a really great cause. I've raised a few hundred dollars so far and I'm just hoping to be able to help their young organization raise money," he said.

Despite being relatively new to the running world--he did not run competitively in high school or college--Oudersluys is no stranger to long-distance traveling.

After his freshman year in college, Oudersluys biked his family's annual trip from Michigan to North Carolina after a sort of dare from his father.

"My family was planning a trip to my grandmother's house in North Carolina and I was talking to my dad about how we were going to get there. He jokingly said 'you could just ride your bike.' So I did," he said.

It was a 700-mile ride that took him about a week. He found shelter sometimes in hotel rooms, sometimes on the side of desolate roads, and one night he stayed with a kind stranger he met during a stop in his travels, all while keeping in contact with his family along the way.

Oudersluys said he will be providing daily updates on his Twitter page, @ProjectGump, and encouraged people to donate to the STEPS Foundation through his Crowdrise page while sending him tweets of encouragement.

He plans on finishing his run on Aug. 16, and enjoying about 10 days of recovery before gearing up to head off to Berkeley for law school.

Jeremy Allen is the University of Michigan reporter for The Ann Arbor News. Follow him on twitter at @JeremyAllenA2. Contact him at 810-247-4625 or jallen42@mlive.com. Find other University of Michigan-related stories here on MLive.com.