RUNNER WITH A CAUSE
Cross-country trip raises money for Christian charity
unning a marathon is no easy thing and Daren Wendell is running one every day.
Wendell, 33, took off from Santa Monica Pier on Jan. 1 and expects his daily marathons to conclude on April 10, when he runs into New York’s Times Square.
His running has a purpose, other than the physical challenge. “I’m running to raise $100,000 to help provide water, health and hope for 2,500 people in southern Ethiopia,” he said, during a stop in Albuquerque late Wednesday.
Wendell is a professional fundraiser for Lifewater International, a nonprofit Christian charity based in San Luis Obispo, Calif. The organization has provided clean drinking water, sanitation facilities and hygiene education to more than 1.5 million impoverished people in 50 countries.
More than 22 percent of children under age 5 in the Borena region of southeastern Ethiopia perish from illnesses caused by unsafe drinking water, a lack of sanitation facilities and poor hygiene, he said.
Wendell said he will accept donations along the way, but mostly people go
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to his website at www.rundarenrun.com, or to his rundarenrun Facebook page to make donations. “I like using my athletic gifts and passions to help those in need,” said Wendell, an ordained minister in the Christian Church. “This is how I worship.”
Though, if truth be known, he was not entirely happy with his prayer session through parts of New Mexico.
Following I-40, he runs along the frontage road, when there is one, or in the desert alongside it. “I stepped on a cactus and the spine went through the side of my shoe and into the arch of my foot. I felt that for a good mile but I ran it off.”
Then there’s that other scourge of the New Mexico landscape. “Goat heads! Those things are nasty. They’re horrible,” he said. “I’d brush up against some scrub and they’d fall into my shoes.”
Thursday was far more pleasant, he said. “I got to run on pavement all day, mostly along old Route 66,” which is Central Avenue through Albuquerque.
He made it to the University of New Mexico area Thursday evening, got a bite to eat at Satellite Coffee, and stayed at the home of an Albuquerque couple who offered to put him up for the night. Sometimes he and his wife, Danielle, and two members of a support crew sleep in a travel trailer that they are pulling behind a large SUV. Whenever possible, they park their RV at a KOA campground, a sponsor of the run.
Unlike a regular marathoner, Wendell, who is from Canton, Ohio, does not run continuously for 26 miles. Rather he takes breaks every 5-10 miles to drink water and stretch. Neither are his marathons a true 26.2 miles. He will often run up to 31 miles a day but is averaging about 29, he said. He also takes his time — sometimes up to seven hours.
Friday morning, Wendell was back on the road as snow fell and temperatures dipped. He reached Edgewood in the evening, where he would bed down for the night, and was expected to head out this morning toward Santa Rosa.
Whether it’s sand or pavement, running is not only hard on his feet, but rough on his shoes as well. Good thing he has plenty of those.
The Finnish shoe company Karhu, another sponsor, has provided Wendell with his running shoes.
“I’m going through one pair about every 10 days,” he said. “I can definitely tell the difference after five or six days, and then by 10 days they’re done. I start feeling everything.”
The daily marathon also gives Wendell time to think. “I think about what I’m going to do after running, I think about work, I listen to music or I have conversations with my pace runner,” a member of his support team who’s traveling with him.
“Mostly, I just try to zone out as much as I can, because that makes the day go by faster.”