HONESDALE, PA — When Warren Edwards visited Honesdale on Thursday, April 10, he came as a man on a mission. 

While in the borough, he walked and jogged for 13.1 miles and cycled for 36.9, for a total of 50. He did 50 pushups, went to get a bacon cheeseburger and a strawberry milkshake at Paulies’ and a tattoo at Premier Body Arts, the state’s initials inked into their place on an outlined map of the United States. 

After he was done, he drove off to New York State, ready to do it all again. 

Edwards is currently on a trip across the United States, covering 50 states in 50 days. Pennsylvania was the 13th state along his journey, a journey which—along with the activies he’s doing at each stop—will get him into the Guinness Book of World Records. 

“People have done [50-state journeys], but doing everything inside of every state is something no one’s ever done,” said Edwards. 

Edwards said the genesis of the trip came from when he was living in California at the age of 48. He told himself he wanted to be in the best shape of his life by the time he was 50, and kept up that goal as life took him from California to Kansas. 

All the exercise built up and he wanted to take on a bigger challenge. He submitted the idea of doing 13.1 miles a day for 50 days to Guinness, which accepted the proposal. 

Almost 14 days into the trip, Edwards said the time has flown by. “It doesn’t feel like 14 days,” he said. The people he’s met along the way have fueled the journey; “I can get to the next state if I know people want to meet me.”

The milestones on the journey are significant ones for Edwards. He shaped the trip’s start and end dates around the birthdays of his closest friend and his father, respectively. The 50 push-ups came from a friend of his named Ron Fry, who had Stage 5 Parkinson’s disease, and would talk about his admiration for people who are strong enough to do 50 push-ups. 

“He just passed away about six weeks ago,” said Edwards. “I probably lost about five or six people over the past year, and it’s kind of the driving force. Because if you don’t get moving, you’re going to die.”

Edwards hopes to inspire other people to get active—even if in smaller ways than a 50-state trip. And he’s committed to the message that people can do anything if they set their minds to it. 

“I’m already done with this trip, in my head; I’ve already completed it. And that’s kind of powerful in itself—if you envision something, and you want it bad enough, and you can forward-think it, you can make it happen. And in my mind, I’m already done,” he said.