Sprinting, jogging and walking along the entire highway route from Boston to Seattle isn’t something everyone can brag about.

But physical education instructor Corey Carver said his approximately 475 students at Komarek School District 94 in North Riverside now have a right to say they did just that.

Collectively, they ran the distance from coast to coast — only inside the school gymnasium.

From September to March 11, the kindergarten through eighth-grade students ran once a week during physical education class — adding their miles, charting their progress on a U.S. map, and writing to schools in the 13 states they “passed through.”

Carver, who brought the idea to the one-school district this year, said he wanted the kids to be physically active with a goal.

“Kids were getting bored with routines, running just to run because us teachers told them to,” he said.

Gym teachers took the average of the total miles each student ran and multiplied that by the total number of students in each class. Those weekly class totals were all added up until the total reached 3,001, the number of miles along the highway route from Boston to Seattle.

Kids sent out letters and 50 postcards to physical education classes in different states to tell about their “Run Across America” project. Students from three schools in Idaho and two in New York wrote back.

One postcard read: “Recently we’ve been doing jump (rope for) heart. ... I’m in sixth grade, so at the end of the year we get to do track. I’m really fast.”

Other cards shared a bit about their state.

Carver said the communication has been eye-opening for the students, especially since Illinois is the only state that requires daily physical education in its public schools.

“Students were surprised that a lot of the other states we’ve talked to might only have one day of physical education once a week, and that’s not enough for a nation fighting an obesity crisis,” he said.

The parent-teacher organization and board of education helped promote the Komarek kids’ efforts and purchased one “Run Across America” T-shirt for every student.

Sixth-grade student Amy Zyck, 11, said she likes running to challenge herself.

“If I go a short distance one time, I want to go a longer distance another time,” she said. “If I say I want to run two miles, I go for that goal.”

Next year, Carver plans for the classes to do the distance within different countries around the world and have students write to different schools internationally.