Last weekend, long-distance runner Lenny Maughan ran 28.93 miles through the hilly streets of San Francisco to complete this mapped portrait of Frida Kahlo. Visible through the Strava fitness app, his "Frida Run" took him six hours and eight minutes to finish and was carefully planned out before he left his house. This isn't his first specially-mapped run, he's added over 30 pieces to his "Running Art" project in the past three years (some of those are visible here).
He describes the process of planning a piece as pretty analog. He prints out a paper map and highlights his route. He usually goes through several different iterations of the map before he sets off on a run. While he's on the road, he must be very careful to follow it – if he makes a wrong turn it has the potential to ruin the whole piece.
"You can't see the lines drawn until after you finish your run, so it's such a joyful feeling when you put in all of that work and you finally finish and get to see what you envisioned at the end," recounts Maughan...
"San Francisco is my canvas. I use the streets as framework for what I want to do, find shapes, and make it work. Kind of like how little kids look up at the clouds."
image via Lenny Maughan/Strava
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