21-year-old BYU student running a marathon around each campus building

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Sam Johnson, a 21-year-old BYU student, runs marathons around campus buildings.
• He began this challenge on May 11 and has completed nine building marathons.
• Johnson plans to run around all 30 BYU buildings by the end of the year.

PROVO — Like many college students, Sam Johnson was sitting in his BYU classes during finals week, daydreaming about doing something else. What he wanted to do, however, isn't something that most would consider any more fun than regurgitating information in a testing lab.

The 21-year-old mechanical learning student thought it would be a good idea to run a marathon around each one of the buildings on campus.

"I've always loved doing challenges and trying to do things that most people would think are crazy to do and see what I'm capable of," Johnson told KSL. "I wanted to do it for myself mostly. I didn't even tell many of my friends about it, but I just figured that when I had time, I would try it."

That day came on May 11, when he said he didn't have "anything better to do" after work.

"I just went up to campus and grabbed some bananas and an energy drink so I could fuel myself," Johnson said. "I wasn't sure which building I was going to do, so I just kind of looked around while I was walking to campus, and I saw the Thomas L. Martin Building, or "the MARB," as it's commonly known. It's small, and it's just a square shape. So I decided to try that one."

And just like that, he just started running. He tracked his run on the Strava app and took a few videos along the way. When he was done, he thought he'd make a fun video and post it on Instagram.

"By the next day, the video had 100,000 views, and I had brands reaching out to me wanting to sponsor and collaborate," he said. "It was really crazy."

Johnson was already motivated to complete the challenge, but having people rooting for him gave him that extra drive. He has also had many people want to join him on his runs. To date, he has run a marathon around nine buildings on the BYU campus, with his fastest finish being 3:14 and his slowest at 4:40 around the Life Science Building.

Johnson grew up in West Valley City and said he has long been interested in endurance athletics, running his first half-marathon with his mom when he was 12. He also participated in track and cross-country in high school, but said that he actually considers himself more of a cyclist.

"I really enjoy cycling," he said. "I think the reason I'm able to recover quicker (from the marathons) is because I do a lot of cross-training."

In fact, on July 4, Johnson and his brother rode 250 miles from Cedar City to Salt Lake City to celebrate America 250. He is also a unicyclist and recently completed the marathon distance on a unicycle.

"I'm just doing this for myself, and I've been surprised by the reactions I got," he said. "I enjoy doing these challenges. I want to improve my physical fitness, as well as my mental discipline. It's also a really good pastime. There are a lot worse things I could spend my time doing."

Johnson said he has counted close to 30 "official buildings" on the BYU campus and plans to run around them before the end of the year, adding that he has no plans to stop even after this challenge is complete.

"There's always more buildings I can run around," he said.

It isn't just buildings the BYU sophomore runs around, and he said that this weekend, his goal is to complete a 50-mile ultramarathon that his friend is hosting in Idaho.

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The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Arianne Brown

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Arianne Brown is a reporter covering southern Utah communities, with a focus on heart-warming stories and local happenings. She has been a reporter for 14 years.