Eight years ago, a 47-year-old Englishman living in Canada ran his very first marathon. Who could have guessed that in 2010, Martin Parnell, now 55, would run a staggering 250 marathons on his way to raising $250,000 for children? Certainly not the runner himself.
Even after years of running marathons, and sometimes tackling three a week while training for even longer “ultra-marathons,” Parnell knew that running 250 in 365 days was a lofty goal. Hell, that’s 6,550 miles — the distance from Los Angeles to New York and back, plus 1,000 miles.
“I didn’t have a clue if I could do this,” Parnell told Tonic. “It was pretty scary putting it out there.”
But he did, in order to raise $250,000 for Right To Play, an humanitarian organization that works to improve the lives of disadvantaged children around the world by expanding their access to sport and play.
And he asked people to join his “Marathon Quest 250.” Last year he ran at 60 schools, often doing 100 laps around the soccer field to accomplish the day’s marathon, and was joined by 12,000 kids. Frequently, the children would donate their birthday money or allowances. Parnell would tell them about the children he had met in Africa during a bike trek in 2005, about how he played table tennis with them, about how they only had one set of clothes and lived in huts. The kids in Canada just got it, Parnell says.
He had 20 people pay $1,000 each to run with him and keep the day’s race bib. Twenty-five businesses took him up on his offer to conduct a health and wellness day with employees for $2,500.
Now that the races are behind him, he’s just $2,000 from the $250,000 fund-raising benchmark he set. To help, donate here.
To accomplish the running part of the feat, Parnell ran 26.2 miles each day of the week, Sunday through Thursday, and then recuperated on Fridays and Saturdays.
He did most of his running in his town of Cochrane, Alberta, though he also traveled to compete in the Boston, Vancouver and Calgary Marathons.
He initially scheduled 12 off days but used them up recovering from an injury in February. At the time, he thought it was a stress fracture that would derail his quest just 28 marathons in. It turned out to be a muscle issue, and after some time off and walking eight straight marathons, Parnell started running again.
Despite that injury and others, Parnell says the most grueling strain was mental. It seems it’s hard to stay motivated when you know you’ll be running in the rain for six hours. “If it was just something I was doing, I would have stayed in bed with a cup of tea and the newspaper,” he said. But the thought of the kids Right To Play would help with the money he raised kept him going.
When he crossed the finish line of the 250th marathon, Parnell said he had a couple dozen kids running with him. Twenty-five pairs of running shoes after he began, he had done it. “I was totally burnt out. I was done physically and mentally. I had had it,” he said. “But the feeling was indescribable.”
Sarah Stern, the manager of corporate partnerships for Right To Play Canada, laughed, “I think when he first came to us, people were like, you’re going to do what?” Parnell has since been made an athlete ambassador for the nonprofit. “What Martin has done has been so inspirational for people across Canada,” Stern said. “It spurred so many donations and so much interest in what we’re doing. How do we thank him enough for what he’s done this year?”
With the cost of programming at $50 per child, per year, Parnell’s fund-raising will enable 5,000 children across the world to get out and play.
He’s not taking much time to relish the accomplishment. At the end of May he’ll head to South Africa to run in the Comrades ultra-marathon, which is 56 miles long. Then he’ll travel to Benin to visit some Right To Play schools. Stern said he’s likely to see a game similar to freeze tag in which the person who’s “it” is the mosquito and the players must display the symptoms of malaria when they get tagged. He’ll also see the smiles that made his sweat worthwhile.
Photos 1 and 2 courtesy of Martin Parnell, photo 3 courtesy of Right To Play.