El Camino Box Run continues
Mike Strange provides latest update
People have been following the Route of St. James since medieval times.
The network of trails that wind 800 kilometres through the Pyrenees from France to the west coast of Spain — also referred to as El Camino de Santiago — ends in the town of Santiago de Compostela which is believed to be the resting place of St. James the Apostle.
Thousands of people follow the route on foot each year, some do it to honour the apostle, others do it for their own personal reasons.
For Mike Strange, he is completing the longest pilgrimage route in Europe to raise awareness of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and to raise funds for several charities that are dear to his heart.
“I have met a lot of people and everybody is doing the Camino for different reasons — health, mid-life crisis, losing a loved one, mental clarity, etc.,” he said.
“Everybody asks me why I am doing it and well I tell them it’s for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and for the kids on my back, they all get very teary-eyed and hug me.”
As he completes what he is calling Box Run Camino, Strange wears a T-shirt with the names of children who have lost their battle to cancer, has beat cancer, or is currently fighting the disease.
He dedicates each day to one of two children who have battled cancer.
His goal is to hike or run 25 to 30 kilometres a day in order to complete the route by the end of the month.
“Day 1 was really hard, climbing up through the Pyrenees,” he recalled. “I had to do an extra 6.7 kilometres because I got there very late and there were no beds so I ran up two more cities until I found one.”
Day 3 was also a struggle.
“I did 44 kilometres because I got lost twice, which isn’t hard because you’re mind wanders,” he said Thursday.
Thursday was Day 6. Strange completed 30 kilometres in honour of Mackinley Sebert, who underwent surgery to remove a brain tumour at the age of two and is now doing well.
Strange, 48, is posting daily videos on his progress on his Facebook page and accepting donations at BoxRun.org. The money he raises will go toward the McMaster University stem cell and cancer research unit and to Ronald McDonald Houses.
He has also incorporated what he has dubbed the “Milk Every Mile” challenge into his trek. Each day, nominates people to do some form of rigorous exercise then chug some milk. He then challenges participants to nominate others.
Strange makes several nominations a day.
Why milk?
“It is a great recovery drink,” he said.
Strange’s first Box Run was held in 2012, when he ran about 3,100 kilometres from Ontario to British Columbia and raised $100,000 for Childhood Cancer Canada.
In 2014, he ran from Newfoundland to Niagara Falls, then in
2016 he was among a group of local residents who climbed a mountain range in the Alps between Italy and Switzerland, in what they called their Box Climb, again to raise money to fight childhood cancer.