The Journey of His Life: Holmdel Man Runs Across U.S.

Every night, Jerry Grabosky waited at his home in Orlando for the text message, wondering about the desolation, hardship and physical pain that his 28-year-old son might be enduring at any point that day.

 “I did need a text from him every day saying that he was OK,’’ Jerry Grabosky said. “I needed that for my sanity.’’

Then he saw firsthand just what his son was going through, which might have been even more detrimental to his frame of mind.

“I went out to New Mexico, and there’s no shoulders on the side of the road, blind curves, and 18-wheelers bearing right down on him,’’ Jerry said. “It made me quite nervous, but I was just trying to be there to support him on his journey.’’

On Jan. 20, Holmdel High School graduate Jeff Grabosky had started running in Oceanside, Calif., pushing an 80-pound baby jogger filled with a tent, sleeping bags, food, water, clothing and medical supplies. His goal was to not stop running until he had crossed the continental United States and hit the Atlantic Ocean at Smith Point, N.Y., on the eastern coach of Fire Island National Seashore.

On May 20, urged on by a group of about 25 family and friends, a battered Grabosky snapped a makeshift tape at the finish line of a 3,700-mile journey, the equivalent of nearly 142 marathons.

 “I can't believe I made it,’’ Jeff said. “I was so lucky with all the help I got, and I felt God was with me every step of the way. In my mind there's no way I make it without the support and help of God and the people I met along the way. To realize the dream and the satisfaction was almost indescribable.’’

While the finish was exhilarating, how he got there is the part that will resonate with him forever.

 An Idea is Born

 In the years leading up to his audacious quest, the former cross country runner at Holmdel High School had endured a series of hardships that led him to run greater and greater distances.

In the middle of October, 2006, his mother died from cancer. A week later, he said his wife of less than a year walked out on him and filed for divorce. He was only 22 years old and now had no wife, no mother, and soon was living out of his car.

He moved to Washington, D.C., and continued to race, using running as therapy for the wreckage of his life. In August of 2008, he was set to run a marathon when a blister on his left lung burst a day before the event, collapsing his lung. After it was re-inflated in the hospital, it collapsed again three days later. He was rushed to intensive care, where part of his lung was removed.

So Grabosky promptly did what was natural to a born adventurer, even one without two full lungs. A month later, he signed up for a 100-mile race. He had never run anything longer than a marathon, which is 26.2 miles.

 “Jeff is very much of the moment,’’ his father said. “In many ways he is a role model for me. He exemplifies living for the moment, enjoying the day, and enjoying the minute.’’

A year later, Grabosky completed that long-distance race just north of Houston, and the tiny seed that was planted after a marathon in 2008 began to bloom. He was going to attempt to run across the United States.

It was 2010 by then, and he was unmarried and facing the decision of renewing his lease at his apartment in Washington, D.C. He was managing Potomac River Running for a friend for money.

“I wasn’t married and I didn’t have any real financial commitments, so I figured the time was now,’’ he said.

It was partly a religious experience for the 2005 University of Notre Dame graduate who double-majored in finance and theology, and partly a physical quest for a runner who always had an adventurous spirit.

“I was pumped for him and I was kind of jealous, to be honest with you,’’ said Craig Segal, a 2002 Holmdel graduate and one of Grabosky’s former cross country teammates. “It’s something that a lot of people dream about, and a lot of people don't have the wherewithal to put the foot forward to start it and do it."

Grabosky quit his job in August of 2010, and moved back to New Jersey with his aunt and uncle in Manalapan and began training. When the weather started to get too cold, he moved in with relatives in Phoenix.

When he wasn’t out running, he was researching. He spent plenty of time on a website called usacrossers.com, which features a compilation of all 248 crossings of the United States on foot by 220 individuals. It has links to websites documenting runs that are in progress and ones that have been completed, allowing Grabosky to see the difficulties faced by others who completed the journey.

He also had an e-mail correspondence with a runner who wrote a book about his experience and how he dealt with the mental fatigue and loneliness.

In late January, he hopped in a one-way rental car and drove to Oceanside.

“I had a ton of people tell me, ‘You'll never make it,’ whether it was people I ran into on the way, or people I told before I did it,’’ Grabosky said. “It seemed like such a massive undertaking.’’

The Journey

Always a deeply religious person, Grabosky wanted to add a spiritual component to his trek. Rather than solicit any type of donations, he urged anyone following his journey or inspired by it to send prayer requests to him via e-mail, Facebook or through the website he set up, jeffrunsamerica.com.

He had a GPS device on his cell phone that allowed people to follow his latest whereabouts through his website. He began pushing the 80-pound contraption after taking a photograph of the Pacific Ocean to prove he was there, embarking on the biggest challenge of his life.

He started with little fanfare, having to chosen to not heavily publicize his event, other than mainly doing some interviews with religious-oriented publications and radio stations.

“I was really surprised at the response,’’ he said. “I know people are cautious around religion, but soon I got requests from all over the world, which I wasn’t really expecting.’’

“All of us complain about the world, and say, ‘What can I do? I’m only one person,’’’ his father said. “That's how we change the world. We change it one person at a time.’’

While Grabosky had meticulously prepared for the trip, there are some things that just cannot be completely anticipated.

He was crossing from California into Arizona when he found himself 30 feet from a mountain lion. The lion fixed its gaze on him before loping down to take a cool drink from the Colorado River.

“It’s a lot different than in a zoo, that’s for sure,’’ he said before laughing. “I think I was going to pray at that time whether I was religious or not.’’

Grabosky also endured the desolation, physical and psychological, of the desert in Arizona. At one point, he was 90 miles away from the nearest patch of civilization.

“If I run into a problem, I'm going to be in a tough situation and that's where I think prayer really helped me because I didn't feel like I was alone,’’ he said. “The mental part was the most difficult, which I thought it would be. Your mind is telling you to quit. It’s a constant battle to try to quiet the voices and keep it positive.’’

Depending on his location, he either slept in his tent, a motel, or with friends and family. In one instance, he slept in a shed on the property of The Blanchard Rock Shop in a remote area of New Mexico.

Duing his time in New Mexico, his father came out to help as a spotter because of the danger on the roads. There often was no shoulder and hairpin turns, meaning drivers of 18-wheelers might not be able to see him until the last instant.

“I came out at a time when he really needed the help because of the dangerous terrain he was running,’’ his father said. “There were a lot of elevation changes and curves, and I would track a half mile behind him with my flashers on to let trucks and cars know he was up there so they wouldn't hit him.’’

“There were times where I came a few inches away from losing my life,’’ Jeff said. “I had to use my sense of hearing when the road turned because in some cases I had to go into a ditch in the side of the road to avoid an 18-wheeler.’’

While running in Texas, he encountered a dust storm with sustained winds of 40 miles per hour and gusts of up to 60 mph. While in Ohio, he had run for five hours when the baby jogger got multiple flat tires in a rainstorm, and he endured a five-hour setback.

Meanwhile, everyone from hitchhikers and others he met along the way offered him encouragement and assistance. He met a man who was playing his guitar in WalMart parking lots to earn money to make it across the country to see his sick mother, and also received regular inspirational e-mail messages. He was saying the rosary almost constantly thanks to a steady stream of prayer requests.

“I was hearing from parents of a 3-year-old with a brain tumor who needed to pray for a miracle,’’ he said. “I was hearing from people who have no money and are going to lose their house. I just thought, ‘I'm so blessed I have my health, and don't have any major problems.’ It would keep me going.’’

Painful blisters and a bulging disk in his back sidelined him for five days in Washington, D.C., because he was unable to walk.

“I never doubted that I would finish,’’ he said. “I had times when I thought the level of pain would be insurmountable, but I was not going to stop.’’

As he entered the final week of his run, he had dinner with Segal and another former Holmdel teammate, Paul Merces. The two then joined him on a five-mile stretch of his run on Route 34 in Holmdel.

“It was very inspiring to run with him for that 30 minutes and then send him on his way up Route 34 to Elizabeth,’’ Segal said. “He was definitely beat up a little bit, but we had dinner the night before and he was telling us all his stories. There was no way he wasn’t going to finish it.’’

On his 12^th and final pair of sneakers used during the run, he made it to Smith Point and the Atlantic Ocean.

“One of the highest points of my life was watching my son go through that tape and go into the ocean after 3,701 miles,’’ Jerry Grabosky said. “It was very emotional. I'm so proud of him I can't tell you.’’

Now that he has time to reflect on his accomplishment, Grabosky has not suffered from the depression sometimes associated with completing such a monumental task. It would be easy to wonder what could possibly top his long-distance run. He said he kept a journal and could possibly try to write a book about his adventure, but right now, the future is wide open.

“I don't think I'm ever going to do anything to top this and I'm OK with that,’’ he said. “I don't have the desire to do anything that big again. I’m trying to get back to running, searching for a new job and searching for what’s next.’’

As much as he was inspired by those along the way, his feat also gave those following him a reminder as well.

“Tomorrow will bring something beautiful,’’ his father said, “but take the time today.’’