Runners to trek from Athens to Atlanta then run Georgia Marathon for charity

Ultramarathon runner Sean Blanton thought raising money for charity with long-distance runs would be easy.

Just tell people you’re collecting donations for a run the equivalent of four marathons and surely the money will just pour in, right?

But Blanton, a 25-year-old running coach and Atlanta native, found people had trouble wrapping their heads around just how far he was willing to run to raise the money.

“People would just kind of roll their eyes when you tell them you’re going to run 100 miles because they’re not distance runners and that’s not really relevant to them,” Blanton said.

So he and his running buddy Eric Loffland, of Athens, decided to put it into perspective by running from Athens to Atlanta and then, maybe just in case that didn’t get the point across, participating in the Publix Georgia Marathon immediately after.

“That’s how we thought people who lived in Athens or Atlanta or anywhere in between could realize the distance we were doing,” Blanton said. “Everyone’s made that drive before, so everyone could relate to that distance.”

Blanton and Loffland, 37, have brought in more than $1,500 of the $5,000 they set out to raise for the American Cancer Society as they prepare to leave from the Arch on Broad Street at 10 a.m. on March 17, run to Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta and cap their journey with the Georgia Marathon the following morning.

Blanton first made the run about three years ago when he left Athens the day before the start of the 86-mile Athens to Atlanta Road Skate race. Following the same path the inline skaters would take the following

day, he made his way to Piedmont Park in downtown Atlanta, finishing just a few hours before the first skaters crossed the finish line.

“I didn’t really manage to get the publicity I wanted to or raise as much money as I wanted to that time,” Blanton said. “So I knew it was something I wanted to do again.”

He has become familiar with the route since and said stretches of it are as unpleasant as you might imagine.

“I left my house in Buckhead, run up Lawrenceville Highway, and it was in August,” said Blanton, recalling the last time he made the run. “The route I took was about 60 miles up Lawrenceville Highway, down Athens Highway, and it was awful because there were no sidewalks and no shoulder to the road. The heat index got up to 110 degrees. It’s a tough run, even if it’s not hot.”

Blanton, though, loves a challenge. He routinely takes on 50K races and road marathons days apart, and he has plans to head for the southern end of the Appalachian Trail, possibly as soon as March, in hopes of setting a new end-to-end speed record. Another hiker recently completed the more than 2,184 miles from Georgia to Maine in 46 days, averaging nearly 50 miles a day.

The route to Atlanta is almost exactly 75 miles, but running on the outside edge of the road and calculating all the tiny slivers of added distance they’ll cover with each bend and turn, Blanton said it comes out at more than 80 miles by foot. Tack on the 26.1 miles for the marathon and the pair will have traveled more than 100 miles.

“I’ve run over 70-something ultra marathons in the last three and a half years, so I have a lot of race experience,” Blanton said. “But I think this will be a little different experience, and we’re really looking forward to this one.”

For more information on the run or to donate, visit Blanton’s website, runbum.com.