Next month, runners representing the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois will be taking part in the A-Cross the Country Relay with the LIFE Runners pro-life group. The relay began on Ash Wednesday and continues until Palm Sunday, March 24. It is being held during Lent to coincide with the 40 Days for Life prayer vigils.
The National LIFE Runners Team prays, runs, raises money for pregnancy help centers and builds awareness on the issue of abortion. LIFE Runners participate in races and seek financial sponsorships for the pregnancy help centers they support. They have 34 chapters with more pending and over 800 teammates through the United States and seven other countries.
"LIFE Runners chapters are organized locally, not on a diocesan level," says Kyle Holtgrave, who leads the Springfield chapter. "Chapters must be made up of five or more runners."
The A-Cross the Country Relay is significant because it is taking place during the Year of Faith and because it covers so much ground, Holtgrave says. The East Coast arm of the race (1,997 miles) launched from the New York City Brooklyn Bridge and the West Coast arm (2,092 miles) began on the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge. Runners are wearing T-shirts bearing the message: Remember the unborn, Jer. 1:5.
After 40 days with 1,103 legs (about ~5K each) covering 4,089 miles, the East Coast and the West Coast arms will unite in South Dakota. The Illinois portion of the race runs from Hutsonville (near Terre Haute, Ind.) at the Indiana border to Alton, crossing the Mississippi River into Missouri.
"All Illinois legs run through the Springfield diocese where the LIFE Runners' chaplain and recipient of the 2012 LIFE Runner of the Year award, Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, resides," says Jeff Pauls, LIFE Runners vice president and Belleville chapter leader. At press time, a few of the legs in far-eastern Illinois (five between Altamont and Vandalia and one in Alton) had been kept open in case anyone else in Illinois wants to participate, he says, adding there are still plenty of spots open in Indiana and Missouri.
"The abortion culture in Illinois is very prevalent. It is in the top five in terms of states where the most abortions are performed," Pauls says. "Since Chicago is the third largest city in the country, it's also a target for abortion providers. We want to change the culture here in Illinois to make abortion unthinkable.
"I believe we are entering the time when that can be achieved," he says. "LIFE Runners is going to do it through prayer, awareness and sacrifice. In the process of all of that, (we will) empower pregnancy help centers with the funds we raise through our efforts."
The East Coast runners will be crossing through Illinois during the second full week of March. That's when Kyle Holtgrave and Bob Feldhake, both from the Springfield diocese, will be running in the relay.
Feldhake, who lives in Bishop Creek and is a member of Sacred Heart Parish in Effingham, will be running on March 8. He'll be covering nearly 14 miles. "I am signed up for four legs in the relay, between Grove and Effingham. And I'll likely be helping some friends cover the 13 legs they've signed up for the following day," says Feldhake, who is "fairly new" to distance running.
"I was a sprinter and a hurdler in high school ... . I'd rather be playing hockey or soccer, but there isn't much of that to be found in Effingham County, so I took up running to stay active," he says. "I found out about the LIFE Runners last June.
"I had just started to find joy in running and signed up for the St. Louis Marathon as a means of keeping me motivated. Not long after I found out that Bishop Paprocki was going to be running, and that was the first I'd heard about the LIFE Runners." Joining the LIFE Runners "seemed like a no-brainer" he says.
Feldhake, who is a software engineer and plays guitar for Masses at Sacred Heart, will pray while he runs. "The A-Cross the Country is a perfect way for us to spread the pro-life message literally across the country, and I think making it a Lenten sacrifice only adds to the impact of that. I carried my rosary in St. Louis in October, and I plan to carry it again for the relay."
Holtgrave, who is associate director for Youth and Young Adult Ministry in the Office for Catechesis, plans to have his wife drive with him to the Alhambra area on March 9 so that he can run the nearly four miles to Hamel, where she will pick him up. "For me, running for life gives me the motivation to get off the couch and discipline myself into shape," he says.
"I see running as a metaphor of the Paschal Mystery — the physical demands of running being a form of dying so that something greater, better personal health, can be achieved as the 'rising' experience of the Paschal Mystery," Holtgrave says. "The time I run is spent in prayer, praising God knowing that every breath that I am now laboring for is a gift that I can enjoy. But so many unborn brothers and sisters never get the chance to take their first breath because of abortion."
After 40 days the race will culminate in a special way at the St. Joseph Cathedral in Sioux Falls, S.D., at 1 p.m. on Palm Sunday, says Air Force Lt. Col. Pat Castle, one of the co-founders of LIFE Runners. "I will be at the finish line of the A-Cross the Country Relay. That's where the East Leg meets the West Leg," Castle says. "It will end with a blessing from Bishop (Paul J.) Swain."
To learn more about Illinois legs of the A-Cross the Country Relay, contact Jeff Pauls at (618) 520-6223 or go to http://liferunners.org/cross-country-relay/.