14,000: Miles Bill Lake plans to walk

49: State capitals he plans to visit

15: Hours per day he plans to walk

2: Years it will take

8: Number of charities he wants to support

Travelin’ man
Bill Lake of Auburn hopes to raise money to help find cures for AIDS, cancer and Parkinson’s disease on his walk around the country

AUBURN – Before setting out Friday on a 14,000-mile charity trek – visiting 49 state capitals over two years – Bill Lake never trained.

In fact, the 42-year-old former jail guard from Auburn admitted that his feet get sore after 6 miles of walking.

“The whole trip will be training,” Lake said Thursday. After a month, he predicts his 20-miles-per-day goal will be easy and his waistline will be smaller. He has good equipment – he ordered doctor-recommended walking sneakers – and plans to pace himself for the long haul.

He wants to travel 15 hours per day, covering his daily mileage in a walk-an-hour, rest-an-hour rotation.

“It’s a marathon,” he said. “It’s not a sprint. I don’t have to hurry.”

Time may help his ultimate goal, raising money for eight charities, including the Animal Protection Institute, the Sunshine Foundation and American Forests. He hopes to raise money to help find cures for AIDS, cancer and Parkinson’s disease.

He’s labeled his effort “The Great American Walkathon.”

Over the next two years, he hopes to draw public attention to the causes, encouraging lots of people to give a little.

“It’s all about everybody giving just a little bit,” he said.

It’s an idea that’s been developing for several months.

Earlier this year, he left his job as a guard at the Cumberland County Jail. Since then, he’s been working on fixing up his old farmhouse in rural Auburn and coming up with this adventure.

It needed to be a little nutty, he figured.

“I want to be able to get people’s attention,” he said. As he makes his way from capital to capital, he plans to connect with reporters. He wants to draw people to his Web site, www.thewalkathon.com, where people can give money to the charities. People can also sponsor Lake, picking up some of his expenses as he moves along.

His plan is to live off fruits, vegetables and tuna fish from supermarkets along the way and to spend his nights in a tent along the two-lane blacktops he travels.

There will be no chase car. He’ll carry what he needs – his clothes, food, tent and sleeping bag – in a waterproof backpack.

As he leaves, he has less than $100 in the bank. But the mortgage is paid on the house, where his wife, Fern, and children Tegan, 16 and Logan, 14, will wait behind.

“We don’t have a lot of money, but our bills are paid,” he said. Fern plans to stay in Auburn, where she works as an accountant and is running for the City Council. Tegan plans to run the Web site, tracking her dad as he walks from city to city. Logan will keep the computer running.

They’ll stay in touch with a cell phone, courtesy of Lake’s mother. If all goes as planned, they’ll miss birthdays and Christmases. He plans to stop only if he’s sick.

“The separation will be hard,” Lake said. “We understand that the cause is worth it.”

To Lake, it’s a small sacrifice when compared to others.

“People are going to Iraq for two years or more and people are shooting at them,” he said. By comparison, he’s just taking a very long walk.

One of his biggest challenges, so far, is finding routes that don’t include interstates, where pedestrians are usually banned.

At one point, he called AAA and ordered a TripTik.

They tried to lend a hand but had trouble giving him directions that didn’t lead him to highways. Instead, they gave him a bunch of maps and he began marking the less-traveled roads.

Today, he plans to start on the steps of the capital in Augusta, heading out on Route 3 to the ocean. From there, he’ll head west to Montpelier, Vt., and beyond. He plans to hit Michigan by winter, the Rockies by early spring and Alaska next summer. By the following winter, he hopes to be in the Southwest. Then he’ll head east for home.

And when he gets home?

“We’ll get in the car and drive,” he said. “I think I’ll be done waking.”