Running 'the cherry on top' for Hamilton man in fundraising relay to Chicago

While people were indulging in Thanksgiving dinner on the weekend, Andre Morgan of Hamilton was busy finishing the last of the 126 kilometres he ran over five days — sometimes overnight, and occasionally in the rain.

The 37-year-old resident of Hamilton's Stinson neighbourhood was part of the ultramarathon Escape to Chicago, where a dozen runners from Canada and the U.S. ran 10 kilometres at a time, 24 hours a day, from Toronto to Chicago. In total, it was about 875 kilometres, and Morgan estimates he ran 126 of that.

The effort raised money for six different charities from Toronto to Chicago, and runners switched on and off around the clock, ending with the Chicago Marathon on Sunday.

"My legs are tired," Morgan said from a Chicago hotel room Sunday. 

This was his third ultramarathon, but "this one resonates more because of how charities are at the forefront," he said. "Running is the cherry on top."

Escape to Chicago started last Tuesday, when a team of a dozen runners, accompanied by two RVs, left the CN Tower and began the trek to Illinois. They ran through part of Hamilton, where members of Morgan's local Air Up There running crew surprised him by jumping out from behind the bushes and running alongside him.

In a rural area near London, Ont., Morgan said, someone disarmed by the lights of the media crew called the police on them. In Michigan, "we had people yell at us from the highway."