“Run, Pete, run!” 
 
 Manhattan celebrated its very own Forrest Gump on Monday, when 29-year-old Pete Kostelnick reached City Hall, landing in the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest man to ever run across the country. 
 
 Just like Tom Hanks’ beloved character in the 1994 classic “Forrest Gump,’’ Kostelnick started on one end of the US — on the steps of San Francisco’s City Hall on Sept. 12, his birthday — and just kept running. 
 
 By the time he hit the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge on Monday, exactly 42 days and about 2,900 miles later, he had gathered a mob of 10 fans who started running with him. 
 
 As with Hanks’ character, when Kostelnick stopped for a minute, such as to retrieve a dropped water bottle, the crowd stopped. When he moved, they all did. 
 
 The group gathered steam as it ran south of West 125th Street and along Central Park, growing to about 25 people. 
 
 As Kostelnick neared Midtown, several men in business suits joined his journey, running for several blocks with him. 
 
 Bystanders chanted, “Run, Pete, run!” and “Forrest Gump!” 
 
 The fleet-footed financial researcher, an Iowa native who now lives in Nebraska, said he had been to Manhattan before and felt right at home running on Sixth Avenue — because he had once chased a bus along the street on foot. 
 
 When Kostelnick reached City Hall at around 5:45 p.m. — after 42 days, 6 hours, 34 minutes and 6 seconds on the road — he had shattered the previous record of 46 days. 
 
 As he crossed the line marking the end of his odyssey, Kostelnick quipped, “Well, I’m definitely not going to run back. 
 
 “All I want is a beer and my wife,” he said. 
 
 By Kostelnick’s own admission, he hardly began as a running prodigy. 
 
 ‘I would run 72 miles a day. So I’d break it up into 18 holes of golf, and every four miles was another hole.’ 
 
 He dipped his feet into the sport initially to lose weight but found that not only did he like to run — he was pretty good at it. 
 
 He swiftly conquered the marathon and found his true calling was super-long-distance ultrarunning. 
 
 One of the first races Kostelnick entered as an ultrarunner was the RAGRBRAI fund ride across Iowa — for bikes. 
 
 He ran 423 miles in seven days, finishing ahead of some cyclists. 
 
 He has since won the prestigious Badwater135 Ultramarathon two years in a row, setting the course record in 2016, and ran 163.68 miles in 24 hours in 2015. 
 
 Kostelnick then set his sights on running across country — and shattering the Guinness record while he was at it. 
 
 His route had spanned the altitudes of the Rockies, the windswept mid-American plains and the severe ups and downs of the Poconos before he hit the mean streets of Manhattan. 
 
 He ran at a consistent nine minutes per mile, occasionally walking up hills or slowing toward the end of the day to let his muscles cool down. 
 
 Kostelnick said he passed the time by thinking about sports and numbers. 
 
 “I would run 72 miles a day. So I’d break it up into 18 holes of golf, and every four miles was another hole,” he told a Post reporter who ran with him his first five days and then his final three. 
 
 For the past six weeks, Kostelnick and his crew assumed a workmanlike approach, but with no allowed vacation or sick days. 
 
 Kostelnick would typically rise at 3 a.m., consume a breakfast of plain oatmeal and milk and a protein-powder shake. He would then hit the pavement at 3:30 a.m., run about 40 miles, and then eat a second breakfast, this time high-protein and high-fat, usually including eggs, bacon and different carbs such as mashed potatoes or lasagna. 
 
 Kostelnick would then cover another 30 miles before stopping for the night around 6:30 or 7 p.m. and inhaling dinner. It usually included a meat such as steak or meatloaf, a carb including mashed potatoes or pasta and a possible legume and protein shake. 
 
 He allowed himself only two 15-minute breaks during his long stretches — to eat. 
 
 He estimates that he consumed roughly 15,000 calories per day — including 12 cans of Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew and A&W Root Beer. He also guzzled water and Gatorade. 
 
 Kostelnick also burned a lot of rubber, going through eight pairs of running shoes. 
 
 At night, he would get a massage from professional masseuse, chef and RV driver Cinder Wolff, then enter a fitful sleep interrupted by bouts of hunger and restless legs. 
 
 Kostelnick’s veteran race crew of Dean Hart and Chuck Dale tracked his mileage and caloric intake while driving ahead of him and stopping either every mile or at every turn in order to ensure the runner stayed on course. 
 
 His data was confirmed by several GPS devices, a detailed physical mileage log kept by his crew and a Bible-thick stack of witness testimonials. 
 
 He sported two GPS watches and one satellite tracker at all times. The detailed recording was necessary to satisfy not just the Guinness Record organization but also legions of doubters. 
 
 The former record holder, Frank Giannino, who ran a similar route cross country in 46 days in 1980, said he was happy to see his achievement beaten by “an athlete at the top of his running game.” 
 
 “Records are meant to be broken,” he said. 
 
 In a testament to Kostelnick’s running prowess and mental perseverance, several all-time endurance athletes, including “Running Man” author Charlie Engle, have attempted a record crossing and failed. 
 
 Kostelnick said he was secretly hoping actor Hanks would show up at City Hall in Manhattan to cheer his feat. 
 
 As a consolation, he already has another trip planned — but it doesn’t involve running. 
 
 Kostelnick said he wants to drive the course next time — because he didn’t get to enjoy any of the sights. 
 
 “I eat, run, sleep,” he said. ||||| Though it's an election year, only one person can truly say they've run the country, and his name is Pete Kostelnick. 
 
 Kostelnick, a 29-year-old from Nebraska, became the fastest person to run the width of the United States on Monday, when he completed his 3,100-mile run from San Francisco to New York City in 42 days, 8 hours and 34 minutes. 
 
 Kostelnick's run is still waiting to be verified by the Guinness Book of World Records, but current record-holder Frank Giannino, who did the California-to-New York run in 46 days in 1980, was on hand Monday and greeted Kostelnick by saying, "Congratulations, brother." 
 
 Kostelnick said he fell twice during his journey and went through eight pairs of sneakers, and though he's not quite a modern-day Forrest Gump, he said he was occasionally joined by fans. 
 
 "Awesome people ... they drove 10 hours to run with me for 5 miles," Kostelnick said of his supporters. 
 
 Though a two-time winner of the Badwater Ultramarathon, a 135-mile race that starts in California's Death Valley, Kostelnick took up running a few years ago in an attempt to lose weight. 
 
 After he'd canvassed the country, Kostelnick said he wanted two things: to spend time with his wife, Nikki, and drink a beer. ||||| Previous record-holder Frank Giannino Jr. helped hold the finish-line banner at New York City Hall. After Pete Kostelnick ran through it, Giannino presented a gold baton to him, a symbolic passing of the record. Photo: Courtesy of Hoka One One, Justin Britton 
 
 When Pete Kostelnick set out from San Francisco on Sept. 12, his goal was to break a record that had withstood every challenge for 36 years. 
 
 To do it, he hoped to run at least 70 miles a day for more than two months to New York City, a feat of physical and mental endurance that some believed was nearly impossible. 
 
 But on Monday, Oct. 24, Kostelnick not only broke the record, he crushed it by roughly 4 days. 
 
 Kostelnick, 29, jogged onto the steps of New York City Hall late Monday afternoon in 42 days, 6 hours and 30 minutes, beating the mark of 46 days, eight hours and 36 minutes set in 1980 by Frank Giannino Jr. For the new record Kostelnick averaged just over 72 miles per day, covering a total of 3,067 miles. 
 
 Accompanied by a small group of runners who escorted him through the streets of Manhattan, Kostelnick looked almost fresh in his bright blue shirt, sunglasses and backward baseball cap as he finished off an 87-mile last leg that began at midnight. He finished his run at City Hall, the same location where Giannino finished his run decades ago. 
 
 After climbing the steps, accompanied by his wife, Nikki, they shared a kiss and a long, emotional hug. 
 
 “I am not running back!” Kostelnick said to those who had gathered. 
 
 “I think it was more mentally and emotionally challenging then physical,” he added. “Everyone who came out was incredible. That’s what got me through this run, meeting so many awesome people across this country. I couldn’t have done it without them … It was an incredible journey.” 
 
 Giannino, who was there to see the record-breaking finish among a crowd of Kostelnick’s family, friends and runners, had known for weeks that his record would fall. 
 
 “He’s at the top of his game,” Giannino said on Monday. “He has this thing completely measured.” 
 
 Giannino, in fact, helped hold the finish-line banner. After Kostelnick ran through it, he presented a gold baton to him, a symbolic passing of the record. 
 
 “Congratulations, brother!” Giannino said as he handed it over. 
 
 The run didn’t start out smooth for Kostelnick, a financial planner originally from Iowa. After six days, he needed to take a rest day because of problems with his ankles and shin. But after that, Kostelnick got back on the road and kept churning. As time went on, he said he felt stronger and stronger. 
 
 RELATED: Strava Data for Pete Kostelnick’s Record Run 
 
 Five years ago, Kostelnick first started thinking about going after the record when he met standout ultra runner Marshall Ulrich at a race in Colorado and they talked about Ulrich’s cross-country run. Kostelnick said recently that he knew he wasn’t ready to attempt it then, but he kept the idea in the back of his mind. 
 
 This year—after winning the Badwater Ultramarathon for a second straight year—he felt he was ready. 
 
 Ulrich didn’t know who Kostelnick was when he first met him. “I didn’t know him from Adam,” Ulrich said—but he followed his running progress with interest the last couple of years. 
 
 Now Ulrich, who ran across the U.S. himself in 52 days back in 2008 at the age of 57, says it’s hard to explain how amazing Kostelnick’s feat is. 
 
 “I’m in awe of it,” he said. “It almost makes me speechless.” 
 
 The fact Kostelnick chose to run essentially the same route that Giannino had run in 1980 is also impressive. Ulrich explained that route is longer and more difficult—because of crossings through the Sierra and Rockies—than a more southerly route. 
 
 Ulrich also said he thought someone might come along to beat Giannino’s record, but he never believed anyone could shatter it the way Kostelnick did. 
 
 “I’ll tell you what, this is probably, at least in my book, the most significant running feat that has taken place in probably the last three decades,” he said. “The combination of physical and mental challenges to run more than 3,000 miles is a high hurdle. 
 
 “The big question was: Did he have the mental prowess overall? And he’s proven over and over that he does,” Ulrich said. 
 
 Nikki Kostelnick hadn’t seen her husband since August. But she was there to greet him at City Hall on Monday. She’d stay in contact with him, making phone calls along the way, but it was hard to connect because of Kostelnick’s running and sleeping schedule. 
 
 Just before Kostelnick finished, she said Pete had been feeling “pretty rough” and “ready to be done.” But she said she always knew he could break the record once he started. 
 
 “Once he gets into his rhythm, he has no problems,” she said. 
 
 At the moment, Nikki says her husband is not going to be running anywhere for a while. “I’m going to force him to rest,” she said. “He needs to take at least a month off.” 
 
 RELATED: Strava HeatMap Tracking of Kostelnick’s Record Run ||||| HCSS employee Steve Maliszewski now walks the halls of the company's Sugar Land, Texas, campus with a big ol' shiny belt buckle on his waist. Since the 1970s, it's been tradition to reward finishers of races 100 miles or longer with a belt buckle, and this one is the tell-tale sign of Maliszewski's135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon adventure. 
 
 Finishing No. 28 overall out of 100 total competitors in the race, which is run non-stop from Death Valley to Mount Whitney, Calif., Maliszewski was the first Texan to cross the finish line out of the six competitors from the Lone Star State. His finish time was an impressive 35 hours and 49 minutes. 
 
 HCSS tracked his progress in real time by installing one of our GPS Units onto his crew’s van. His supporters watched with anticipation as “Super Steve,” as he is known in the Texas running community, started out from Lone Pine, Calif., on July 21, waiting to see the lines of the GPS slowly move along the race route via HCSS’s website. Also feeding in was a stream of tweets with updates from his crew via Maliszewski’s Twitter handle @drunkenb. Even from afar, it was exhilarating to track his progress. 
 
 21 July, Steve @drunkenb : The journey of 135 miles begins with one step! 
 
 Just after the race director played the national anthem on his iPhone, Maliszewski, decked out in Lone Star State garb, started his race at 7 a.m. Rested, he recounted that the first few miles were effortless. 
 
 21 July, Steve @drunkenb : Steve just finished marathon number 1. Only 4 more to go!! 
 
 The first major climb of the course was a straight 23 miles uphill, traversing through a series of seven switchbacks up to 10,000 feet in elevation. At Mile 19 Maliszewski read what would be the first of a series of letters received throughout the race. 
 
 “It was an idea of Grady Harrison's, my crew chief, to read me letters from people to give me inspiration or a pick-me-up when times were low and I needed some extra motivation,” said Maliszewski. “It was an incredibly thoughtful and wonderful gesture, and I enjoyed each of my letters when they were delivered.” 
 
 The first letter was from Comrades legend Bruce Fordyce, a South African ultra marathon runner who has won the South African Comrades marathon a record nine times, eight consecutively. Other letters from inspirational runners and good friends continued to trickle in throughout the next 30 hours, giving him words of encouragement to run by. 
 
 21 July, Steve @drunkenb : Steve is at mile 60 and headed up the second big climb. 8 miles up, 4,000+ ft of gain. 
 
 The HCSS-provided GPS unit helps Maliszewski's crew -- and HCSS -- track his progress in real time. 
 
 “We put it in right when we got there, and we checked the HCSS website a few times to make sure it was working,” said Maliszewski. “My crew members said they actually used the HCSS website to figure out where they were. They had to do the navigation as there’s no course markings so they referenced the site a couple of times while helping me out. It was just more convenient to use that as opposed to Google Maps, since the map was already there.” 
 
 21 July, Steve @drunkenb : Steve just reached the summit of Cerro Gordo. Half way!!! 
 
 Running these distances means everything should be monitored, including what goes in and what comes out. His crew tracked every last detail into a spreadsheet that “made me feel like a lab rat,” said Maliszewski. Staying fueled with water, fruit, a Subway sandwich, and a tailwind, his favorite staple was gummy worms. "They were always pushing the gummy worms." 
 
 Blisters and painful tendinitis in one of his ankles along the route meant Maliszewski also took Tylenol to ease the pain, and the medication was also added to the spreadsheet. 
 
 “There was one time I said, ‘Where’s the Tylenol?’ and [a crew member] said, ‘Oh we forgot it.’ But really, it was too soon to take more so they were making sure I didn’t take too much,” said Maliszewski. 
 
 Keeping his best interests in mind, his crew -- it turns out -- was lying to him. 
 
 22 July, Steve @drunkenb : Steve just hit mile 80. He is walking strong. 11 miles to the turn around. 
 
 As far off the beaten path as Maliszewski was, one would expect him to see some wildlife. Did he catch a glimpse of any sort of exotic desert creature to keep him company on these long stretches of empty road? 
 
 “I saw some vultures and crows, and I told them that I wasn’t ready yet,” laughed Maliszewski. “There were these little desert rodents that were perfectly colored as the desert, and I would see them every now and then and see them run across the roads real quick. They’re little guys. That was about it.” 
 
 The horseflies proved to be brutal, especially in the back stretches. 
 
 "I am not sure if it was because I was wet and they were searching me out, or what, but they would fly up the brim of my hat and into my sunglasses," Maliszewski said. "I could feel them on my shoulders, and they would bite. Up Cerro Gordo with the headlamp at night, they were attracted to the headlamp so I was getting things stuck to my hair. Vikki, who was pacing me, had a flashlight. She was nice enough to take the headlamp away and just use the flashlight, so I followed her light and that helped me not be so annoyed. It was really tough, and she got bit up really bad. We had bug spray, but I don’t think they cared. Apparently, I smelled good enough for them to want me.” 
 
 22 July, Steve @drunkenb : It's a beautiful clear night out. LOTS of stars. We have seen a few shooting stars while we are sitting here. 
 
 With the moon hanging like a sliver of light in the sky, the stars put on a show. Maliszewski said he gathered energy at night due to the change in the atmosphere and the disappearance of the sun?. 
 
 “It was really neat to see the stars -- they were so bright,” said Maliszewski. “It was good that it started to cool off a bit. Once I got down from Cerro Gordo I sat and ate a little bit. Once I got back up, I moved a lot better and ran a lot more. So that section was really nice.” 
 
 22 July, Steve @drunkenb : Steve was like Pacman during the night. He was gobbling up other runners like candy! 
 
 The vast landscape meant there was little point of reference throughout the race. During the day the road rolled on endlessly and the mountains never seemed to shrink. At night, Maliszewski had only the night sky and a headlamp to move him forward, with little perspective. It seemed at times like a race to nowhere, but Maliszewski was able to break up the monotony of the route. 
 
 “I was using the cars ahead to focus on," he said. "It kind of reminded me of the HCSS team relay that we do, the Texas Independence Relay, where you run at night too, of course in shorter sections. All the runners and crew members have blinkers, little flashing red lights, so you could see those in the distance. I could see the other support cars so I used those as points of reference. It was like a game where I was trying to catch them so it started to get real fun. I started to see that and I would see a light and then catch them. I passed a lot of people there. That started to become a lot more fun.” 
 
 22 July, Steve @drunkenb : Mile 114 and Steve is dreaming of the cool blue waters of the Lone Pine Comfort Inn swimming pool in 6 miles. 
 
 Not just a race of physical endurance, Badwater is a venture of mental tenacity. What ran through his mind logging mile after mile? 
 
 “I would think about what section I was on and the different little things that I was looking forward to," Maliszewski said. "Coming down the mountain, I was looking forward to the planned slushy my crew was going to bring me from town. Going up Cerro Gordo, I was cursing the mountain but I was imagining what the ghost town up ahead looked like, about how cool it was going to be. Then I’d think about clever things to say to my crew members since I hadn’t seen them in a while. But I’d forget to actually say them, so it was all in my head.” 
 
 22 July, Steve @drunkenb : It's 100 F out, he has already gone 119 miles, and Steve just ran an 11 min mile! He CANNOT be stopped!!!!! 
 
 “In a lot of respects it still feels like a dream,” Maliszewski said, talking about the breadth of the race. “When I think about the whole thing, the whole thing was so vast it’s hard to even sit down and read my recap. It was tough to read. I think I was lucid the entire time so I pretty much remember everything even though after a while I wasn’t talking that much. I would listen to a whole bunch of things, I was absorbing it all. It was pretty neat.” 
 
 22 July, Steve @drunkenb : It's official, Steve is done! 35:49:58. Truly inspiring!!!! 
 
 Dressed in his HCSS team shirt with “the end in sight, I felt a few tears drop as I linked up hands with my friends and team members,” said Maliszewski. 
 
 He and his team crossed the finish line and broke the tape together. 
 
 “I might have traversed all 135 miles myself, but I couldn't have done it without each and every one of the people I was now surrounded by. After we were done I hugged and thanked each of them individually before standing on the backdrop to get our picture taken with my shiny belt buckle.” 
 
 The Badwater statistics soon started rolling in post-race. Of the 704 people who have finished Badwater since it began, 20 have been from Texas. Maliszewski’s time is the fourth-fastest from a Texan. 
 
 “Finishing fourth all-time just leaves me room for improvement,” he said. 
 
 After 135 miles logged, 36 hours of no sleep, 8 lbs. lighter and little left in the tank, it's hard to imagine how a person levels back to normality. 
 
 “I was good post race -- I think my crew members were sorer than I was, and they were pretty upset about that,” Maliszewski said. “I was able to eat a McDonald's hamburger an hour after I finished -- not sure if that constitutes as a meal. When I woke up the following day I was stiff but I could move, and I was walking pretty fine to help my crew pack up the van. I spent the day walking around the Vegas strip. It was kind of weird seeing all the strangeness of Vegas.” 
 
 So what’s next for the ultra-marathoner. His race time at Badwater qualifies him for an ultramarathon in Greece, the Spartathlon, which follows the path of Pheidippides, the first man to ever run a marathon. 
 
 “There’s a little-known story about Pheidippides -- everybody focuses on, ‘That’s the guy that died running the marathon, right?'” says Maliszewski. “That was actually the second day. The day before [the marathon], he ran this huge run over 150 miles from city to city, then ran the marathon, where he died. This run recreates that, through all these small towns in Greece.” 
 
 Other runs in mind include a race of man versus horse. From time to time, man actually wins. 
 
 “Since the horses can’t cool themselves, they tend to slow down after a while, "Maliszewski said. "Also, in steep declines, the horse will be tentative trying to navigate down such as a big ravine, where the man will take caution to the wind. So you make up time doing that.” 
 
 You can read Maliszewski’s adventurous recap in his own words on his personal blog. And keep your eyes and ears tuned for his next insane run. 
 
 Read our lead up article to Badwater about Maliszewski's preparation for the race. 
 
 Watch a timelapse video of HCSS's GPS Unit tracking his crew along the Badwater course. 
 
 Read how Reece Albert cut their trucking budget by $900,000 using HCSS's GPS Units.
– Philippides, who? Pete Kostelnick has just made the Greek legend's marathon race look like a quaint sprint. Keeping an average pace of 73 miles per day, the Nebraska ultrarunner, 29, landed at New York City Hall on Monday having raced 3,100 miles from San Francisco in just 42 days, six hours, and 34 minutes, reports the New York Post. He smashed the previous record time for the trek, set by Frank Giannino in 1980, by four days, though Guinness World Records has yet to confirm the time. Kostelnick, who started running several years ago to lose weight, fell twice, per ESPN, but the only real casualties were the eight pairs of shoes he burned through running 15 hours per day, starting at 3:30am, with two 15-minute breaks. A financial planner and two-time winner of the 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon, per Competitor, Kostelnick drew comparisons to Forrest Gump, not only because of his Bubba Gump hat. Like the fictional character, he was joined by fans—"awesome people ... [who] drove 10 hours to run with me for 5 miles," he says. When he reached Manhattan on Monday to chants of "run, Pete, run," a crowd of 25 was running with him, including men in business suits. "As with [Tom] Hanks' character, when Kostelnick stopped for a minute, such as to retrieve a dropped water bottle, the crowd stopped. When he moved, they all did," per the Post. "Well, I'm definitely not going to run back," Kostelnick said at the finish line. "All I want is a beer and my wife." (A runner just set an Appalachian Trail record.)