Social Action

The Million Dollar Race

TWENTY YEARS AGO, Linda Quirk began running as a way to mentally remove herself from an unhappy
family situation. Now, she runs for a cause that she credits with bringing her family together. The 55-year-old Jacksonville grandmother of three is on a campaign to raise $1 million for the addiction scholarship program at Caron Renaissance Institute treatment center in Boca Raton by running a marathon on each of the seven continents. Caron is a non-profit center that helps those addicted to drugs and alcohol to recover.

Quirk’s quest, named” Run 7 on 7,” kicked off with the Boston Marathon in April 2008, and will end with a race on King George Island, on the tip of Antarctica, on March 10. In between, Quirk has hit the ground running in China, Easter Island,Australia, Kenya, and Iceland. Her Web site, Run7on7.com, details her experiences in a blog.

So far, she has raised nearly a quarter of her goal, but remains undaunted if she falls short financially. “I will raise the million dollars, even if I have to go into next year to do it,” she says. She declines to reveal her next adventure, which is already in the works.

When Quirk first began running, she was trying to mentally escape the troubles in her first marriage. Quirk has since realized that her husband at the time was addicted to methamphetamines, but says she was too ignorant to realize that was the root of the difficulties in her marriage. Quirk’s motivation now is to remove the stigma from the illness of addiction, and help others realize there is hope. Her stepdaughter, who has been sober for more than five years, was “more or less on the streets for three years,” suffering from the problems of addiction to methamphetamines, says Quirk. This time, Quirk was a little more aware of the problems of addiction. Like every family who deals with this crisis, there were moments of deep despair and hopelessness. “But I try not to spend too much time dwelling on what got us there,” Quirk says. “I focus on the recovery and what amount of courage and determination she has to have every day in order to stay healthy.” In 1988, Quirk completed her first marathon, and has been on the move ever since, participating in Ironman full and half competitions, as well as marathons and triathlons. An epiphany caused by a bicycle accident during a training ride changed her focus from one centered on herself to one that seeks to reach out to others.

Quirk says she doesn’t remember much about the accident, except what she’s been told by others who were there. “I was going downhill, about 25 miles per hour, when I hit a pothole, and hit the ground head-first,” she says. “I broke practically every bone in my head and was in ICU for three days. As she recovered, Quirk made a vow to participate in the competition in Sweden she had qualified for before the accident, and from there to go on to the Kona, Hawaii Ironman. In Kona, she began her mission to give back to Caron, and raised more than $50,000 for the treatment center during that race. The reaction from others in nearly every country she has competed in this year has amazed her, she says. “It started on the bus going to the staging area for the Boston Marathon. I struck up a conversation with the woman next to me, and when I told her what I was doing, she said ‘Thank you for doing this; I never talked about this, but my brother has a problem with addiction.’” “I know that the fingers are going out there, and conversations are being had, and people are talking about this,” Quirk adds. “That one little conversation where someone is able to talk about it-that’s something I hope comes out of this.”

The idea to participate in marathons on all continents came from a club Quirk belongs to, the Seven Continents Club, established by Marathon Tours & Travel. She chose the particular marathons based on a mix of the timing of the races, and the locales that seemed both exotic and challenging. Of all the countries in her quest, the only one she has visited before is Australia. “I knew I wanted to start in Boston, and I wanted Antarctica to be the last,” she says. “You always question why,” Quirk says of the accident. “But it happened so quickly, I never would have been able to say goodbye to my family. I believe the reason I’m here is so I could do exactly what I’m doing now.”

Her enthusiasm and dedication has involved the entire family, albeit to a lesser degree. Quirk’s stepdaughter supports her efforts by running a 5k race whenever Quirk participates in a marathon. The rest of her blended family, including her two sons from her first marriage and her stepdaughter, also takes part. Her daughter-in-law ran the China marathon; one son and her stepdaughter ran a 10k in Iceland, while her other son ran a halfmarathon in Atlanta. “Even Grandpa pushed a stroller in Iceland for the 10k,” Quirk says.

Along the way, she has been joined by others besides family who want to take part in her mission. One of those participants is Michael Herbert, a primary therapist at Caron Renaissance in Boca Raton for nine years.

“I knew it was an important cause, and I wanted to help out in any way I could,” he says. He chose to join Quirk in Kenya, and though he has been to Africa many times before and lived in Egypt for a year, he found the going to be pretty tough during the marathon. “The experience was much more than I expected,” he says. “It was painfully hard—you want to yell at people in the middle—it seemed to go uphill forever in the beginning. But who are you going to yell at in the middle of the savanna?”

Herbert, 49, says he’s a regular runner, but wants to drop 60 pounds before participating in full marathons. “I always sign up for a marathon and end up doing the half-marathon,” he says.

Still, Herbert is no stranger to running in unfamiliar terrain, having raced in Alaska. “I said if I can do that, I can do this one.”

In Kenya, where elephants visited their campground, he was bowled over by Quirk’s dedication. “Just the physical and mental work you have to do to do this is unbelievable,” he says. “It’s a wonderful thing to really give back to others who may not be able to afford treatment.”

Herbert raised $14,000 for his effort in Kenya, and half of that came from one family whose daughter Herbert helped to successfully overcome an alcohol addiction. After leaving the center to pursue a nursing degree, she died in her sleep.

She had remained sober for two years before her death. Herbert was asked to give the eulogy at her funeral, and later the family sent a check for $7,000 for the marathon fundraiser. “They were so grateful they were able to have their daughter back,” Herbert says.

Despite the physical difficulties with the altitude and uphill terrain, Herbert says he wouldn’t trade the experience. “It was an adventure, and I’m glad I did it.”

For Quirk, the adventure is ongoing. She is still training for her last marathon in Antarctica with her coach, former Olympic marathon team member, Keith Brantly, and says she’ll never stop traveling.

The environmental challenges in each location have given her new incentives that keep her training fresh. To prepare for Antarctica, she’s running this winter in the cold weather and higher altitude of Montana, where her family owns a home. “I’ll learn to maneuver with layers of clothing and gloves,” she says. She’s also focusing on endurance, rather than speed. Her training always involves time in the gym, and for Antarctica she’s also using the Stairmaster machine.

Quirk typically runs six days a week, lifts weights on two or three days, does Pilates two days, and bikes for three days.

“I usually do two to three disciplines in a day, which works out to two and a half to three hours per day,” she says.

“I try to do it all in the morning, and then I’m done for the day.” Nutritionally, Quirk focuses on staying healthy in the various countries. That means she brings her own bottled water, and oftentimes, her own food.

“I didn’t eat a lot of the food in China, because if I were to get a parasite, all bets are off. I brought oats and applesauce, and ate a lot of sticky rice.” Dedication aside, Quirk is hard-pressed to name her favorite country, or anything that stands out among all the races. “Every race had something.

You’re in the moment at all of these,” she says. “In China, being on the (Great) Wall itself—it’s hard to explain the view, and then running through these villages and witnessing the big smiles on these kids’ faces because once a year they see outsiders, and it’s on this day.”

In Easter Island, with only 4,000 residents, Quirk was struck by the isolation, and in Africa, she learned to appreciate the lessons of the third world.

“You come back from there thinking we have nothing to complain about. Here, we have a chance if we just grab it. People in the U.S. have to take a look and reassess how fortunate we are.”

Most of all, Quirk says she realizes the issue she is running for—successful treatment of drug and alcohol addiction—is a global one. The 7 on 7 quest, she says, “has gotten bigger than I ever thought it would. It has mushroomed into this amazing journey.”

Judy Martel is a freelance writer and the author of “Dilemmas of Family Wealth: Insights on Succession, Cohesion and Legacy,” published by Bloomberg.

CHARITY SPOTLIGHT Petra Levin

“FIRST AND FOREMOST, I’m a mother,” says the Caron Renaissance Gala chairman, Petra Levin. “Part of what led me to support Caron Renaissance is their focus on families.”The easy-going and loving mother of two children and three step children—a total of 13 children if you count her dogs— says that raising dollars and awareness for Caron’s programs has become a passion. She has been immensely dedicated to making the annual gala in honor of Caron’s Lifesaver Scholarship Fund a tremendous success.

“My husband, Stephen, jokes that he needs to schedule an appointment to see me,” says Levin. “But he supports my dedication to removing the stigma associated with the disease of addiction. We need to get people talking about addiction so the healing process can begin.”

To that end, Levin recently introduced Caron to the Benjamin School, where daughter Davina is a sophomore and her stepson, Andrew is a junior. Caron and Benjamin partnered to present a forum and book signing by Caron alumni Chris and Toren Volkmann, a mother-son duo who co-authored From Binge to Blackout.

In addition to raising awareness, Levin has masterfully raised critical scholarship dollars for Caron. Under her leadership, an astonishing $1.3 million was raised at the 2008 Gala to provide scholarships to those in need of treatment. They will now be able to benefit from the extended care programming at Caron Renaissance.

In recognition of her efforts, Levin was recently named to Caron’s national board of directors, in addition to her role on Caron’s Florida board. When she’s not planning the next Gala for Caron, the Palm Beach beauty with the great sense of humor can be found on a plane to her home in Vermont, with husband Stephen, or behind the lens of a camera, perfecting the next great shot. Levin’s voluntarism extends to other organizations, including co-chairman of the LIFE Gala, a board member of the American Folk Art Museum in New York, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, 211/The Center for Information & Crisis Services, The Simon Wiesenthal Center and Children’s Home Society.

The fourth annual Caron Renaissance Gala will be held on February 27, 2009 at 7 pm at The Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach. For more information and to purchase tickets, please contact the Caron Renaissance event line at 561.655.7770 or visit Renaissanceinstitute.net.