Ladysmith’s Sean Sherstone tapped into his creative side during a morning run on Wednesday and with each turn along local roads drew a giant minion character.
The artist, photographer and Uforik Computers employee used a mobile app called Strava that tracks workouts and plots the path taken on a map.
“My wife loves minions. She likes them as characters, so I thought if I could draw one that would be kind of cool,” said Sherstone.
A challenge for August was put forward by the New Balance Nanaimo store asking members belonging to its Strava group to make an image by running a certain route.
Minons became popularized after the release of the animated comedy Despicable Me by Universal Pictures in 2010 and the tiny 3.5 feet tall characters have since been featured in several other movies.
To create his design, Sherstone started by using his Samsung Galaxy Note 5 smartphone which comes with a pen allowing him to overlay a sketch of the minion onto the roads.
He then plotted his 10.7 km course using a running app that communicates each left and right turn.
“That way you don’t have be looking at your GPS,” said Sherstone, who is training to run the GoodLife Fitness Victoria Half Marathon in October with his daughter.
“Once you have it mapped out it’s just a matter of running it.”
The height of the minion stretches between Methuen and Symonds streets and width is from the corner of Dunsmuir Crescent and Malone Road to just past 1st Avenue.
Total elevation gain for the run was 150 metres and it took Sherstone just over one hour and seven minutes to complete.
“I figured it out so I wouldn’t have to go up the hills too much,” he said.
Last week he ran 8.9 kilometres in 55 minutes and wrote ‘New Balance’ in the same area of roads in Ladysmith.
“I really did find it fun,” he said. “It’s interesting, if you have something that’s creative like that to distract you from the run it goes way quicker.”
