At 9 a.m. in Battery Park City, Knudson took the first steps of the journey and then steadily headed north. Just before noon, he crossed the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey, logging the first 13 miles.
"I'm psyched to finally be on the road," said Knudson afterwards from his hotel room in Fort Lee, N.J. "My body feels great and my mind is focused."
Knudson’s spokesperson Luke Stafford said the barefoot runner is not taking any cut of the donations, which he hopes to get up to $100 million.
“Tellman has a successful Internet marketing business that has been growing rapidly over the last few years, and this is his way of giving back. He estimates he'll spend about $500,000, all told, on the project,” said Stafford.
Knudson will be traveling with a six-member crew, who among other things, will be able to treat him if he steps on glass.
“He just has to keep his head down and be aware, he's already found a rusty nail and a barbeque skewer while training,” said Stafford.
To make the long haul, Knudson plans to ice his feet regularly, get daily leg massages, and eat lots of energy-rich foods.
At a press conference prior to his run, Deputy Commissioner for the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development Bill Chong and associate professor at Columbia University’s School of Social Work Ron Thompson spoke about the plight of homeless youth.
"People have been calling me crazy for months now, and there have been a lot of skeptics,” said Knudson. “But now that it's underway, there's no denying that I am going to run across the country barefoot. And I'm going to do my best to stamp out youth homelessness along the way. It's on."
Knudson, 32, is a resident of Vermont, where he lives with his wife and toddler son. He will be the first person to run across America barefoot. About 200 people have done it wearing shoes.
Even without the barefoot odyssey, Knudson has his own amazing story. He overcame femoral antiversion, a debilitating leg condition, to compete on his high school cross country running team, setting several school records and competing for the New Hampshire State Championship. Tellman learned to leverage his Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a condition that he said he has used to his creative and financial benefit.
Knudson’s route follows historic Route 66 for much of the way, with stops in Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Phoenix and finishing on the pier in Santa Monica, California.
According to Knudson’s crew, over 2 million youth (ages12-24) will experience at least one episode of homelessness each year and over 100,000 youth sleep on the street for six months or more in America.
“The vast majority of homeless, street-dependent youth will experience amplified risk of exposure to physical assault, rape, sexual exploitation, recruitment into gangs, and deepening mental health illnesses,” read Knudson’s release.