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Sam Johnson runs around the JFSB Building on Brigham Young University's campus Thursday, June 18, 2026, in Provo.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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Sam Johnson runs around the JFSB Building on Brigham Young University's campus Thursday, June 18, 2026, in Provo.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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Sam Johnson is always pushing the boundaries of his physical capabilities, whether he’s running and biking on every paved road in Provo or planning a 250-mile bike ride for the nation’s semiquincentennial.

For his latest ongoing outside-the-box pursuit, he is running a marathon around every building at Brigham Young University’s campus in Provo.

The idea came to him during winter semester finals while getting his steps around campus late one night, and he wondered how many laps it would take to run around a building. He went back into the library to tell his friend about it, and they shared a laugh about it.

A few months later, the idea is no joking matter.

Johnson, a 21-year-old BYU student from West Valley City, started with a half marathon around the Thomas L. Martin Building, then a full marathon around the MARB, and has run seven marathons around campus buildings in the last six weeks — with more to come.

He posted about each marathon on Instagram and, to his surprise, saw some of the videos take off, accumulating hundreds of thousands of views.

In response, some runs were met with fanfare, such as when he ran around the Life Sciences Building in a marathon sponsored by the College of Life Sciences. Others were less exciting, like last Thursday, when he ran around the Joseph F. Smith Building mostly by himself while not feeling well. 

His main motivation isn’t the likes and the notoriety, but his own ambition.

“Regardless of whether or not this had received a lot of attention on social media, I would still be doing it, just kind of as a personal challenge,” he said. “I did want to make videos about it, just for fun, mostly so my family and friends could see what I was up to.

“I didn’t really expect people outside of those circles to be made aware of it, but that’s just kind of how it happened, and I’m grateful for the opportunity that I have to share my talent and my goals. … But I’m doing this for myself more than anything, just because it’s just a challenge I made for myself.”

Johnson was no star cross-country runner in high school. He said he ran at Hunter High but did it more for the social aspect. Distances longer than the 5K were always his preference.

He ran a half marathon with his mom when he was 12 and did his first 50-mile bike ride when he was 9.

“Just by myself around my neighborhood, doing laps around the block, pretty much, because that was the farthest my mom would let me go,” he said. “I’ve always just loved doing challenges like that,” he said. 

As he’s gotten older, the challenges have grown. In college, he ran or cycled on every street in Provo and Vineyard, tracking it on Strava. He made a goal to get 10,000 steps a day. He is also planning a 50-mile ultra marathon. 

All of his spontaneous thoughts he seems to take seriously. He put his campus idea to the test when winter semester ended because he didn’t have anything to do one day. He chose the MARB because its perimeter was flat. The first time, he went 13 miles, then had to leave early to pick up a friend from the airport, but came back a different day to do the full thing. 

Circling the same building 200 times and for hours on end did not go unnoticed. 

“I definitely got some weird looks,” he said. “I would be passing the same person dozens of times and they were probably really confused about what I was doing.” 

Johnson isn’t one to let any self-consciousness override his desire to exercise, though. And he soon found how much people enjoyed seeing him pursue a seemingly silly goal. 

His Instagram video running around the MARB had more than 12,000 likes and nearly 500 comments. Top comments said, “Spring term is so unserious,” and “If you yell while running, do you think the MARB would collapse like the wall of Jericho?” 

“When it blew up, I realized, well, this is kind of a cool idea, like people you know are enjoying this, so yeah, I’ve just been (posting) since,” he said. 

He ran around the Wilkinson Student Center, Harold B. Lee Library, Spencer W. Kimball Tower and the Jesse Knight Building. The Life Sciences run was his favorite because the college and friends rallied around him — and he achieved a feat of going up and down the steep hill south of campus. 

“We got it done, and I think having all the support from the people watching, and the people there supporting from the College of Life Sciences really helped us get it done,” Johnson said. “It was such a great feeling of accomplishment.” 

He has yet to chart out what order he will complete the other buildings in but will have some more surprises up his sleeve coordinating with different organizations on campus. 

His main focus remains his own running, and his eventual goals of running 200 miles and even 500 miles at a time. Before this summer, he felt sore for a while after running a marathon. He said he’s at the point now where he can recover in under a day and be back to 100%.

“There’s basically no limit to the amount of endurance we can have if we just put in the time and effort,” he said.

How popular his quest has become has been gratifying as well and has put things into perspective for him. 

“It’s just showing me that regardless of whether or not you get a lot of attention, everybody has special talents and skills, and everybody deserves to receive recognition for their own unique abilities and their own unique achievements,” he said.