DUNCAN, B.C. — Being stuck sitting down and scrolling through Marketplace was the last thing Darren Kerr would have wanted when he came up with the idea of doing the biggest run he’d ever done. “Long distance running is what I love to do,” Darren smiles. It’s why Darren set out to run the equivalent of 11 marathons in 11 days, from the top of Vancouver Island to the bottom, which he was sharing on Instagram. “I love every moment of it,” Darren says with a smile. “Running in the middle of nowhere. Lots of beautiful scenery.” Following along the 500-kilometre route—in a blue truck he named “Bucky”—is Darren’s one-man support team and friend named Willam Savage. “I make sure (Darren’s) watered and fed,” William says. “I just take away any stress so he can accomplish his goal.” The run went better than planned for the first few days, with Darren doing more than a marathon, 50 kilometres a day. But then on the third day his foot started hurting. “A sharp pain,” Darren says. “It hurts almost every moment that I step.” But Darren kept running for the next three days, almost 100 kilometres more, until the pain became unbearable. “I have a high pain tolerance,” Darren says. “But I knew I couldn’t run anymore.” He also knew he couldn’t quit. Darren was doing all this as a fundraiser for cystic fibrosis, a fatal disease Darren was first diagnosed with when he was three months old. “The chest pain, the coughing, the breathing difficulty that I feel is not fun,” Darren says. It’s a thick, sticky mucus that clings to Darren’s lungs, forcing him to regularly end up in hospital, and travel with more that 30 medications and lung cleaning equipment. “Throughout all that, (he) still has the biggest smile,” William says. “Everyone should have a friend like Darren.” Which brings us back to the beginning of this story, and Darren watching William scrolling through Marketplace. After searching for used bikes, he finally found a cheap one. “I wasn’t going to let him run, but I wasn’t going to let him go home,” William says, smiling. “There’s no problems, only solutions.” So, despite zero experience with long-distance cycling, he hit the road and made up for lost time. “I did 80 kilometres that (first) day, which was insane,” Darren smiles As Darren prepares to peddle the final 44-kilometre leg of his journey, he hopes that along with raising money, he’s also raising spirits. “You don’t have to limit yourself or put yourself in a box just because you’re dealing with a health condition,” Darren says. “If you really want to put yourself mind to something you can do it.”
