A standout runner at Bay Shore High School and both North Carolina and Albany universities, 32-year-old Laura Cummings is currently the track coach at Calhoun High School. And Thursday morning, she began a 100-mile journey from Nassau County on her way to Montauk.
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"I'm running from Calhoun High School to Montauk Point," she said. "It's going to be 100 miles, and I'm trying to do it in 100 hours."
For perspective, 100 miles is like running 3.8 full marathons. But Cummings will break up the 100 miles over those 100 hours, starting off with a brisk 20-miler.
"I'm doing 20 miles to Bay Shore, because that's where I live," she said. "And then I'm going to do pretty much 15 mile increments from there on, twice a day, one in the morning and one in the evening."
And she's doing this for students, hoping to raise $127,000 so she can award a $1,000 scholarship to one student athlete from each of the 127 public high schools on Long Island.
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"They were doing all these Instagram challenges, these different physical challenges, and I just figured something good should come from it," she said. "And I just know how much losing their senior, a lot of them, their senior year, has impacted them. And I just wanted to do something to help."
The John Cummings Memorial Scholarship Fund was founded last year and named after her father, who passed away in 2018. He was someone who was always there for her, and now, she wants to be there for the seniors.
"We did everything together," she said. "He went to every single track meet. When I played softball, he was at every single game. He just did everything for me, and I just want to show up for these kids the way he did that for me."
For more information or to donate, visit BeTheMountain.org/
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