Catching up with Joran Fuller, aka the guy that ran 5.5 miles to ask a girl to prom
Last week Claire Short ( @claire_short_13 ) tweeted, "but did your prom date run 5.5 miles to ask you" with photos of herself and her date. Her boyfriend Joran Fuller, ran 5.5 miles in the shape of the word "prom?" and then had her look at strava, where she was pleasantly surprised.
The tweet quickly started gaining attention, soon it was a 10,000 likes, 20,000, 50,000 and now it's all the way up to 17,000 retweets and 117,000 likes.
Joran and Claire have been featured on Buzzfeed, ABC News, Huffington Post, People Magazine, Canadian Running, ESPN, Daily Mail, The Sun, The Nightly Show. They were even part of the Cosmopolitan snapchat story.
Not to mention the tweet was stolen by a few of the Common White Girl accounts.
This is probably the most attention a cross country runner has ever received... Well... Besides for the time the guy got ran over by a deer.
I caught up with Joran to ask him a few questions about the promposal.
Me: Hey man, I'm Jacob. I run ovalsandtrails.com, would you mind if I ask you a few questions about the promposal?
Joran: I don't mind at all! Go for it!
Awesome man, first off, what state do you live in?
Ohio
So do you always go all out when you ask someone to prom / homecoming?
Never have before
Then what gave you the idea this time?
Well I just started dating her and we're both really into running and I wanted to do something cool for her
Oh wait, are you on the cross country team?
Yeah! Have been since 8th grade. She started running with the guys her freshman year. And the very first run she went on with us was 7 miles at 7:20 pace... And she kept up.. I didn't. To be fair my best 2 mile in middle school was 15:30 and I'll be running sub 18:00 5k this year... hopefully.
Seven miles on her very first run?! You know she's a keeper if that didn't scare here away.
Yeah, you're right dude. She's much better at the 800 in track. I'm more of a 10k, Half Marathon guy. I ran a 1:35 half marathon (7:17 pace) in 2015.
I feel you there, in high school I always felt like the 5k was too short. Do you think you'll do a marathon someday?
I would love to but I've had problems with shin splints and I've talked to a couple doctors and they say I should wait till my growth plates are done so I don't hurt anything. I've picked up cycling, so I hope to get some serious distance on the bike this summer... As long as I don't get hit by a car again.
That happened to me too, I fractured my tibia my junior year. You'll be completely mentally there and then some silly injury pops up. I think it has to with bone structure or something, I've heard of people that run ultras and marathons that only run about 50 miles a week and spend the rest of the time on the bike or in the pool. Did you just casually drop that you got hit by a car?? What! How'd that happen?
Well this summer I was cycling with a good friend, Patrick Breen, and some guy ran a stop sign and destroyed my two week old bike. I walked away with a minor road rash. We were going about 20mph. I was also hit on a bike when I was 12 but we don't speak of that.
Oh jeez, thank goodness you're alright. You look pretty happy to have just gotten hit, what did the driver say?
Before I went to the hospital he said "don't worry, you'll get a new bike" .. Which I did.
So you both walked away pretty lucky from that one. My parents friends got hit by a car and the wife broke her arm and they sued the guy for well over a million.
Dang. That'd be rough. I got really lucky, I managed to get a beautiful new bike. So you run the Cross Country Problems twitter?
Do you primarily cycle now then? Or are you alternating between the bike and pounding your legs on the pavement? And yeah I do!
Nah at least until the end of my high school career I'll primarily be a runner. I just haven't had time lately. I'm in our show choir, which is one of the best in the country and practices constantly. And I have a part in the musical which is this week, so I've been insanely busy. I snuck that prom run in before rehearsal on Thursday.
What do you like doing more? Performing or cycling / running?
Dang dude. If I had to give one up it'd be performing because I can run and cycle for my whole life. And the entire community is amazing.
I feel that. I just started doing some theater stuff this year. And I feel like I've opened a door in my brain I didn't know was there. And then running and cycling... Jeez, I know I wouldn't be sane without those. How long were you planning to run out the letters of "prom" to ask her?
What do you mean? Like how long did it take to plan it? Or how long did I want the route to be?
How long did it take to plan it / figure out where you had to run to make the word "prom?"
Ah. I had thought of it a few weeks in advance but it took quite a while to actually make the course. It was hard to find an area with enough small blocks and streets to make the letters. After I found a suitable area I jumped on the strava route builder and mapped it out so I could watch it on my phone.
How crazy is it that in order for this sport to even get a glimpse of the national spotlight it takes a guy getting hit by a deer mid race and you running 5.5 miles
Hahahahaha, insane. If only the sport were more popular, it's so great. The community is even better than the sport. It's 12:30am here and I'm kind starting to doze off. Any other questions for the night?
It really is. How have these last few days been, from your girlfriend posting how you asked her to prom, to it getting 30k, 40k, now I think it's somewhere around 112,000 likes and now even abc news has contacted you... You're like the damn daniel or alex from target guys right now.
It's been literally insane. I freaked out at 1k likes, then at 10k likes. And after that it just was crazy. We were on Buzzfeed and ABC news. And in Teen Vogue, Huffington Post, all kind of crazy stuff. It blows my mind. Who ever would've thought the kid from Northwest Ohio with no social media would go viral... Well other than Snapchat of course.
Blows my mind too. Last Monday you were a dude with a girlfriend planning out a promposal, a week later you've done something every girl across the nation wishes somebody did for them. But yeah the fact that you don't even have social media is pretty hilarious too. I'll let you get some sleep. Thanks man!
Sounds great! Anytime.
And one question is still yet to be answered... Will the prom actually happen...
