PEORIA (25News Now) - Running from Memphis to Peoria is no easy feat on foot.
On July 16, runners will make their way to Memphis for the 43rd annual St. Jude Memphis to Peoria run.
From July 17-20, 187 runners will run 465 miles back to Peoria to further St. Jude’s mission of providing free care to children battling life-threatening diseases.
“St. Jude, founded by Danny Thomas, opened a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where kids could go with catastrophic diseases and be treated for free. They share their protocols; they share their medicine and with any doctor in the world for free,” said the run’s President Michael McCoy.
While the run itself may seem daunting, McCoy said he keeps himself motivated by reminding himself of the why.
“When you start to get unhappy, and you start to get tired, you get with one of [the employees of St. Jude] and say, ‘So what do you do at St. Jude?’ and then they tell you what they do. And that makes a difference,” explained McCoy.
The daring idea dates back to 1980 when Gene Pratt and Michael McCoy wanted to find a way to combine the running craze of the time with raising money for children’s research hospitals.
“We were talking and said, let’s leave Peoria, which has a St. Jude, midwest affiliate, and let’s run to Memphis and run back, take some people and do it relay style, then we found out that that was 1000 miles,” said McCoy.
The course was charted from Memphis to Peoria. To enter, each runner must pay a minimum of $3,000.
Divided into eight-hour segments and two teams, the gold team will run the first 48 miles, and the blue team will run the next 48, switching off until they reach Peoria Saturday afternoon.
That is where they will run into the St. Jude Telethon at the Peoria Civic Center, which kicks off at 6:30 p.m.
Over its four decades of operation, the event has raised $82.7 million for St. Jude.
“A new runner might come along for the idea of the run, but then we get him to the hospital, and they see what’s going on. Then we get them. They’ll come back. They’ll keep running,” McCoy said.
This story first appeared on 25newsnow.com.
