From what I understand you are supposed to download the blockchain from a location as it will be faster than running your node and hoping it catches up. The default location to download a copy of the present blockchain used to be: http://www.steemitup.eu/witness_node_data_dir.tar.gz but the domain seems to have been sold. See if you can find the file on google or ask around on discord. Let me know how things progress and I'll try help. :)