The latest news about Maine lakes and ponds.

Runner Covers 349.4 miles for Camp Sunshine

February 09, 2010 - WINDHAM -- While most people were making resolutions at the first of the year, Blaine Moore was setting out on an ambitious goal. He planned to run 500 miles during the month of January to raise money for Camp Sunshine.

"Well, that's just crazy," Moore's wife, Erin, said she thought to herself when her husband proposed the month-long challenge.

Each day of the month, he would tack on an additional mile, culminating with a 31-mile run this past Sunday. His slogan: "1 More Mile for Sunshine."

"It's obviously such a unique challenge. Nobody has ever come to us before with that sort of initiative," Camp Sunshine Director of Special Events Michael Smith said. "We are thrilled that Blaine reached out to us and wanted to support us."

Camp Sunshine offers children with life-threatening illnesses and their families a week to decompress and reconnect, Smith said. In addition to setting a 500-mile goal, Moore also wanted to raise $4,500.

"Camp Sunshine is such a wonderful organization because it doesn't just help the children, but their whole families," Moore said. "If I reach my goal of $4,500, it will pay for three families to come to Camp Sunshine and receive these valuable services."

The idea came to Moore, 30, when he heard about a group doing it in November 2008. "I found out about it during the last week of the challenge. It's kind of a neat idea. I thought it would be interesting to try," Moore said.

He originally planned to run with the group, which intended to repeat the challenge in November 2009, but he was not fully recovered from a broken foot and the group never started running. The group then set its sights on January, but that also fell through, with the exception of Moore.

A lifelong runner, he has completed 13 marathons and three ultra-marathons. So while running is something that comes easy for Moore, it is the miles he is racking up that have been difficult.

"When it comes to running, it's hard to talk him out of anything," said his wife, adding that she was concerned about potential injuries.

Since the first of the year, Moore has been keeping a daily log at www.1moremileforsunshine.com and recording his miles, how he is feeling and including some tips for runners along the way.

By the middle of the month, he was writing about a tight hamstring and his legs feeling sore. At the end of the third week, he had run more than 148 miles in one week.

"That just seems nuts to me," he wrote on the blog. "And is well and above anything I have ever done before, including college when I used to actually run crazy mileage."

In the last week of the challenge, Moore began experiencing knee pain. Not wanting to cause a major injury, he said he did not make the mileage scheduled for Jan. 25 through Jan. 30. However, he wanted to end on a high note and completed 31 miles Jan. 31 for a grand total of nearly 350 miles in a month.

"He got himself whole heartedly into this...we're proud of him for sticking it out," said Camp Sunshine's Smith.

When Moore first started the challenge, he recognized the more miles he ran, the more pain it would cause, Smith said.

"It's a little bit of pain and he went into it knowingly. (Blaine) recognized he can't imagine what it's like for our families and what they have to experience involuntarily," Smith said.

As of Sunday, Moore's tally was $800. Even though Moore is in hibernation now, donations can still be made by visiting his Web site to help him reach his second goal.

By EMMA BOUTHILLETTE, Staff Writer, Portland Press Herald, February 3, 2010


Lakes: Sebago Lake
Regions: Sebago


Print this story

Email this story

return to Lake News