Four buddies, three of them from East Greenbush, are on a Forrest Gump-style journey: jogging from sea to shining sea.

"This has been a dream of ours for years and we decided "let's get it done while we are young,' " 23-year-old Matthew Durkin said by cellphone Monday from the shoulder of Route 280 somewhere in Georgia.

With the Atlantic Ocean at their backs, Durkin, Ken Stannard, 23, and Dewey DeLisle, 22, all of East Greenbush, began their four-month run Feb. 1 on Georgia's Tybee Island. They're being joined on the trip by their friend Andrew Wahila, 23, of Endicott, Broome County.

Gump, the fictional character in the acclaimed 1994 film, began his coast-to-coast run after his girl, Jenny, left him. These guys, all high school and college track stars, are doing it just to see if they can.

The four say they're also driven by the unpredictability of what they'll find each day.

But each man has his own reason for the trek.