Rickey Gates ran 1,303 miles of San Fransisco streets in 46 days.
The city of San Fransisco packs a lot of twisting, winding roads into its 47 square miles. And Rickey Gates knows every one of them. On Monday, Gates completed his Every Single Street project.
The project kicked off 46 days ago on Nov. 1. That’s when Gates set off to run the length of every San Fransisco street. In total, he ran 1,303 miles and gained roughly 147,000 feet of elevation.
“To walk across a place is to observe and participate in a vast, intricate and complex web of infrastructure. It is to experience the history of that place in a very real and personal way,” Gates wrote in a blog post before he set off. “To walk across a place is to truly know a place.”
Rickey Gates Runs All of San Fransisco
During his Every Single Street project, Gates’ biggest challenge was route-finding. With the help of friends and a GPS watch, he needed to minimize repeating streets and navigating San Fransisco efficiently.
At several points during his run, Gates wore a face mask to protect himself from the smoke from wildfires. But he persisted through the smoke, documenting his progress with pictures and GPS maps on Instagram.
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Gates has crafted an ultrarunning niche for himself that includes nontraditional challenges. In 2017, he ran unsupported from the shores of South Carolina to San Fransisco as apart of his “Transamericana” project.
For that mission, he sought to better understand Americans following the divisive 2016 presidential election.
And after that project ended in San Francisco, Gates was inspired to take the same mentality to a city. “Without really knowing a city, you can’t really know a country. And that’s where the idea began,” Gates said in an interview with KQED.
For now, Gates plans to more thoroughly document his reflections on this project on his blog. And he plans to go back and run any streets he may have missed. During the interview with KQED, Gates stated there were 2 to three 3 of blocks he may have missed during the endeavor.
