When Joabe Bayer Barbosa went on a hike in March 2024, he slipped and fell down a New England mountain, sustaining injuries and becoming frostbitten and hypothermic. Months after his rescue and hospitalization drew headlines , the graduate student took up running as a way to recover.

He moved to Chicago, and now the former collegiate athlete is trying to run the entire city of Chicago, block by block, by next spring. After about a year, he’s already more than half done — traversing more than 4,000 miles in the process. He believes if he finishes, he’ll be the first to have done so. A local runners group also says it knows of no one who has done so.

What led him to attempt such a feat?

“I started running, and then I discovered that it’s really boring,” Barbosa told the Sun-Times. “It’s r

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