AKRON, Ohio – Two former University of Akron track & field student-athletes are #TakingMACtion by running for awareness & change this Sunday.
Nick Stricklen and
Jeremiah Fitzgerald have spent the last week planning a 90-mile run to raise awareness for Black Lives Matter and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
“Together we are going to rack up 180-miles,” said Stricklen. “[Jerry] ran 21 miles before. I’ve ran 20 miles before. We’ve never ran longer than that, which sounds insane.”
The duo’s run is set for Sunday, June 14
th along the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath, stretching 87-miles from Zoarville to Cleveland.
Two significant landmarks are incorporated to the end of the route to reach the 90-mile mark.
The first being the Jesse Owens’ statue located at Fort Washington Park in Downtown Cleveland (Lakeside Avenue E & West 3rd St.), bringing their mileage to 88. Stricklen & Fitzgerald chose the number 88 because it represents the number of Black American's that have lost their lives in 2020 due to police shootings. (via statista.com)
“We’ve grown up as two privileged white runners who have never had to worry about things like the neighborhood we run through, the clothes we wear, or what time we run,” Fitzgerald stated. “We’d like to use that privilege to raise money for Black Lives Matter and bring awareness to the racism and inequalities that many people are oblivious to.”
The final two miles of their journey takes them to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (2012 W. 25
th Street).
“Luckily they were pretty close to each-other, so we were able to figure out how to get to the Jesse Owens statue by 88-miles and then the NAMI by 90-miles,” said Stricklen.
NAIM.org states “90% of people who die by suicide have experienced symptoms of mental health conditions”, which is why Fitzgerald and Stricklen chose to run 90-miles in one day.
“One of our close friend’s brother just passed away because of suicide. We wanted to do it to honor him and bring awareness to mental illness and suicide prevention,” said Fitzgerald.
As 2020 Akron graduates, Stricklen and Fitzgerald are familiar with their route, having practiced on the towpath numerous times with the Zips Cross Country and Track team.
“We’ve had a thought to run the whole towpath a few weeks ago,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s kind of sentimental thing for us. We were inspired [to run for a cause] by a runner for OSU, Paul Bete, who recently just did a similar fundraiser in Columbus.”
Although their run starts around 5:15am on Sunday, the pair are hopeful others join throughout the day.
“We have a bunch of roommates who are runners and they would like to join in with us. They’re trying to split it up, so when one leaves another comes in,” said Stricklen.
“Northeast Ohio is a huge running community,” Fitzgerald added. “If people are out doing their own run and they happen to go by us, if they could cheer us on and say something about the cause, that’d be great. It’d be really cool to have people popping in to run with us. The more support out there the better.”
Individual sites have been set up to field donations for Black Lives Matter and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention for those who wish to support.
“Both causes were very important to us. It was a weird situation to almost pick or choose should we do it for this or should we do it for that,” said Fitzgerald. “We just decided the best way is we [each] promote the two different causes but we both want to run it together and be able to say that we ran it to support both.”
Fitzgerald and Stricklen will be sharing updates during the trek through their Twitter accounts.
For more information about Sunday's awareness run, Black Lives Matter or the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention --
CLICK HERE.
