Record-holding Maine long-distance hiker now running every single street in Portland

By Troy R. Bennett, Bangor Daily News Staff

PORTLAND — Daniel Mejia of Munjoy Hill knows how to make tracks fast.

Mejia through-hiked the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail in 2018. He’s also done the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail and conquered Vermont’s comparatively short 273-mile Long Trail.

In 2019, he set a speed record, traversing Maine’s rugged 100-Mile Wilderness in just 33 hours, 18 minutes and 55 seconds without any support team, carrying his own supplies and water. 

Mejia crushed the previous record by almost an hour.

With those impressive bipedal accomplishments behind him, Mejia now has his sights set on yet another goal. He’s running down every street in Portland — all of them. That’s upward of 1,500 byways and, according to Portland’s Public Works Department, several hundred miles.

Mejia is including any signed or named street as part of his quest. That means public ways on Peaks, Cliff and Great Diamond Islands, as well as all the named lanes in Evergreen Cemetery, are part of it.

He started running his self-assigned project during the second week of January and has been picking away at it in his spare time, before and after work, mostly, ever since.

“I’ll finish this year,” he said.

Mejia got the idea while traveling around the state for his day job as program director at the nonprofit Boys to Men Project. He’d spend hours watching the state whiz by him through a car windshield. He kept thinking that running, walking or hiking through the towns would be a much better way to get to know them.

“When you slow down, you learn so much by noticing the little things,” he said.

Mejia originally came to Maine from Minnesota to attend Bowdoin College in Brunswick. He liked the state so much, he stayed after graduating in 2017. 

Someday, he said he’d actually like to run all of Maine. 

Running Portland’s streets, Mejia said he’s privileged to get its full picture, including sights, smells and inhabitants.

“There was this guy, working out in his garage, rocking out to that old song ‘Electric Avenue,'” he said, savoring the memory with a grin. “I’ll get this vibe, this energy from a guy — and a neighborhood — like that. It makes the miles fly by.”

Helping Mejia meet his every-street goal is Tucker Gordon, a college friend and current East End neighbor. A software engineer, Gordon created a custom mapping application that shows Mejia where he’s already run and where he has yet to venture.

“It was Danny’s idea,” Gordon said. “He approached me because I do a lot of web development in my job. It’s been fun, as well.”

Gordon designed a system where Mejia’s watch keeps track of where he runs. That data is then uploaded to the site, showing the runner’s daily path in purple lines overlaid on a Portland map.

Mejia can then pull up that info on his phone before a run, to help plan. 

Even with the app, he sometimes ends up running some streets twice, either because it’s a dead end or because it makes sense for a particular route. 

“I’d rather run it twice than sit on my couch for hours, mapping routes,” Mejia said.

Knowing his old friend well, Gordon was not surprised when Mejia announced his latest pedestrian undertaking.

“My reaction was, ‘Yeah. That sounds like you. It makes perfect sense,'” Gordon said.

As of last week, Mejia estimated he’d completed about 70 of 1,500 Portland’s streets. When he finishes, he plans to run all of Portland’s 70-something miles of public trails.

Long term, Mejia would like to hike the Continental Divide Trail. But that would mean months away from his day job and romantic partner.

“For right now, I like being here,” Mejia said. “I plan to stay for a while, as long as I don’t get priced out.”