Philly’s Bud Wilson set a record with his five-day run across Pennsylvania. A run across the entire country might be next.

A record the size of Pennsylvania has been crushed. Philadelphian Bud Wilson, 58, finished a 361-mile run across the length of the state in just five days, 13 hours, 57 minutes and 50 seconds.

The time to beat was nine days, 23 hours, a record set in 2022 by Cain Leathers, who became the first to run the route from Colliers, West Virginia, to the middle of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. Wilson began his journey in the early morning hours of Sunday, June 14, and was met by friends and family as he crossed the Ben Franklin on Friday evening, June 19.

Wilson is no stranger to the niche world of ultramarathons. He completed a first record-setting run across the length of New Jersey in 2025, a 196-mile run completed in two days, nine hours and 27 minutes. Even as he sped through the Garden State, he was thinking about his next big race, deciding on the cross-PA route weeks later.

“There are a lot of cool things that come out of doing something that’s really difficult,” Wilson said. “Plus, I grew as a runner and as a person. So after I finished it, I was like, wow, that was awesome. What’s next?”

“I came across [the Pennsylvania] route and I thought to myself, based on what I did for the length of New Jersey, I felt like I could do it in six days,” Wilson said.

To accomplish that goal, Wilson ran an average of 65 miles per day. That’s more than two marathons a day for six straight days.

It took a team to help Wilson cross the finish line: people to replenish the thousands of calories Wilson was burning, runners in the community to pace him along the route, and trainers who would wake him up after a few coveted hours of sleep and bring him back to the point where he exited the trail.

“There was one time where I was getting so tired I couldn’t make it to the next checkpoint,” Wilson said. “I was looking at the grass on the side of the road, and it literally looked like a 12-inch memory foam mattress. I laid down on the ground, and before the guy who was pacing me could utter the words, ‘How long do you want to nap for?’ I was snoring already.”

For the ultramarathoner and personal trainer, the support of the community was one of the most rewarding parts of the experience. Another was the cause.

Wilson’s past two cross-state runs have also supported fundraising for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He has raised $1,180 so far from this past endeavor and $2,500 from his run across New Jersey. As a father of three, the organization is an important motivator for Wilson as he runs.

“When I’m running, I’m thinking about why I’m doing it,” Wilson said. “I think that, more so than anything else in this world, kids really need support and need people to teach them how to grow into healthy, happy, productive members of society. So when I got ready to do New Jersey, I said to myself, this needs to be more than just about Bud Wilson running the length of New Jersey. ... St. Jude’s was a cause that really, really resonated with me.”

Wilson has not been taking it easy since the ultramarathon. With races on the horizon, including the notorious Barkley Fall Classic in September, Wilson is following a strict regimen of eating well, staying in the gym and cross training.

“I’m no spring chicken.” Wilson said. “
I didn’t start running marathons until I was 46 years old … so I listen to my body and know I’m capable of pushing it hard.

The training is necessary in part becasue he has his eye on an even bigger prize. The Pennsylvania route was, in part, an experiment to see if Wilson has what it takes to begin training for a transcontinental race across America.

“I thought to myself, well, if I can pick something this close to the equivalent of running the first seven days of a transcontinental run, at least that will give me some sort of feel of what that would be like,” Wilson said. “If I’m gonna run from one coast to the other coast, obviously I’m gonna take a stab at beating what the standing record is.”