AUBURN – Apparently running through Death Valley in the middle of summer wasn’t enough of a challenge.
Retired firefighter Mike Brooks has signed on for a six-day race in Queens, N.Y., in another charity run for Camp Sunshine.
His personal goal: 300 miles, one 1-mile loop at a time.
The only person from Maine to ever try this particular, grueling ultramarathon, Brooks is also older than the 32 runners who gave the eighth annual Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence race a shot last year.
Not that he’s fazed by that.
“I figured a six-day race would be cool when you’re 60, because everyone thinks you’re old and over the hill,” Brooks said.
The winner last year ran 478 miles.
It was only 1995 when Brooks ran his first marathon. He’s up to 163, with the most recent two run just this past weekend in Florida. He’s never beaten that very first time: 3 hours, 38 minutes. He runs 26-mile marathons now in about 4 hours, 20 minutes.
“I went out like a kid, I went way too fast. It’s been downhill from there. All the races I run, I never recover,” Brooks said.
His last big venture for Camp Sunshine raised $25,000, centered around a 135-mile invitation-only race through Death Valley in July 2004. The nonprofit camp provides week-long getaways, counseling and outdoor fun for families with very ill children on Sebago Lake. That money was enough to send 20 families.
In this latest race, Brooks hopes to raise $6,000. Auburn Firefighters Local 797 has agreed to match any funds he raises up to $10 a mile.
You need incentive like that to toss around in your brain while you run for hours on end, Brooks said. “It’s really going to push me.”
Michael Smith, development coordinator at Camp Sunshine, said they’ve asked families with ties to camp who live in New York to visit Brooks on the track. They’ll walk too and encourage him along. But not on every mile.
“If we divided it up, I’m not sure we have that many volunteers,” quipped Smith. “He’s become like the Forrest Gump of Camp Sunshine. We’re just awfully proud of him.”
Brooks plans to sleep on a cot in a tent near the Corona Park loop. Organizers will serve meals and offer medical advice and massages, but highly recommend runners bring a crew to watch over them. He won’t be bringing one.
“I hate to impose on somebody for six days,” Brooks said.
Donations can be made and tracked through runningonthesun.org, the site Brooks set up for his Death Valley run.
The race will last from April 30 to May 6. Between now and then, he’s got six more marathons scheduled, and two weeks after that big race, another’s planned in the most exotic locale yet: a marathon on the Great Wall of China.
That one’s just for fun, not charity.
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