I got the call from Justin 3 months into Covid. Heartbreak Hill Running Co. had a van designed for them by the folks at Nike and he needed to get it from Portland, OR to Boston, MA. He wanted to know if I would be interested in producing a short documentary series about roadtripping the van across the country.
It was an interesting prompt for a number of reasons. First, it was still early covid days and I hadn’t been on a flight in months. Second, I had never met Justin or either of the other two guys who would be joining. A week or so would be a lot of time to spend in a van with new people if the personalities didn’t click. And finally, while the van looked sweet, it was still a 90’s VW camper that wasn’t guaranteed to make it the 3,500 or so miles it would take to traverse the country. Spoiler: it didn’t
I said yes immediately.
We ended up producing a 5 episode series about the trip which included runs with the Bowerman Track Club, sketchy camp sites, and lots of fast food. The trip was so much fun that after finishing the series, I still didn’t feel done with the project. I wanted to have something to show for folks who didn’t have an hour to commit to the full series. And so this video was born…