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“It’s a lot of running and hard work,’’ said Day, a senior at The Beacon School in Stamford. He will become the youngest runner to attempt the race on behalf of the CT Challenge, a cancer charity. “I’ve run up to 40 miles a week, and I did 20 miles twice. It’s tiring at the end.”
Day is running on behalf of Maya Oberstein, a 12-year-old girl from West Hartford who was the co-chair of the CT Challenge’s summer ride along with Bobby Valentine. Readers can support Day through his online fundraising page.
Day decided a few months ago to run the marathon on behalf of the CT Challenge. Two family friends had recently died from cancer, and he wanted to run the race in their honor. He found about the CT Challenge through the NYC Marathon website.
“I knew it would be a very good challenge me for to try and finish a marathon,’’ Day said. “I wanted to challenge myself.”
A trainer at a local fitness club created a training plan for Day, who hopes to finish in about 3 hours and 30 minutes.
“I just found the training to very hard,’’ Day said. “Instead of waking up and watching television, I have to run so many miles. I’ll do a lot of runs at night after dinner. I have homework and running, so it can be hard to balance everything.”
Day said his friend know he likes to try daring adventures.
“They know I do things most other people don’t do,’’ he said. “I’ve done two or three night sailboat races, and I’m planning on going skydiving. My friends know my interests are a little unusual.”
Now that’s he is in the homestretch of his training and just days from the race start, Day thinks he’ll do a marathon for charity again in the future. “It’s hard, but I think I would like to do it again,’’ he said.
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