A Winnipeg man wants to change Boxing Day into ‘Running Day’, and he’s doing it for a good cause.
For the fourth consecutive year, ultra-marathon runner Junel Malapad is spending his Boxing Day running to raise money for Siloam Mission.
The run began, he said, for a simple reason.
“I love running and I don’t like shopping,” said Malapad.
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This year, Malapad is running a 3.3-km loop through The Forks and around Provencher Boulevard and Marion Street. A few other runners and supporters joined him along the way.
Malapad will run the route 30 times before finishing it off with a final run to Siloam Mission to drop off donations.
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He started running at 4 a.m. and is expected to finish at Siloam by about 7 p.m. — an extreme run, even for an ultra-marathoner like Malapad.
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“At the end you’re pretty happy and there isn’t very much pain, but everything just creeps in and soon you’ll find you felt like you’ve been hit by a truck,” said Malapad.
“But after that is recovery and you start thinking about the next thing.”
In the past three years, he’s raised about $21,000 for the charity. This year he hopes to raise an additional $10,000.
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