LAWRENCE COUNTY, S.D. (KELO) — 12 local runners are well on their way as they cross the entire state of South Dakota on foot. For the second straight year, KELOLAND’s Dan Santella is running in this effort, The 437 Project, while covering it journalistically. Santella had the team’s first leg Thursday morning: a roughly 11-mile segment beginning at the Wyoming border. The runners each take turns running until the caravan reaches the Iowa border.
That timing brought favorable weather for a runner: cool, little wind and without the sun’s intense rays. Tony Goettsch also had pleasant weather conditions: the kind that match his personality.
Santella: Physically, how’d that first leg feel?
“It felt great for about seven, eight miles, probably, and then my legs started feeling pretty heavy, especially when we turned on that last mile, ’cause there was a big hill there I think at like mile six, and it felt like it went straight up for about two blocks,” Goettsch said. “But that long hill out of Spearfish, that was unbelievable.”
And this kind of challenge highlights a lesson the runners will all feel on route.
“I was trying to think about the people that have gone through a lot worse than me, just going up that hill,” Goettsch said. “Like, that was really nothing compared to what they’ve gone through in life.”
The 437 Project highlights how essential mental health is while also raising money for the Helpline Center, a Sioux Falls-based nonprofit. Runner Israel Zinns shared his thoughts ahead of his first leg from the comfort of one of the group’s RVs.
“11 miles, and half of it’s uphill,” Zinns said. “It’s going to be awesome.”
Santella: “Are you, is that a little sarcastic?”
“Yeah, yeah, just a little,” Zinns said.
But it was time to finally begin this journey.
“We’re all ready to, like, just get out here and run,” Zinns said. “I think we were all at the hotel really anxious last night, and everybody was just kind of like, I want to run now. Now. And so now we get to do it today.”
And Thursday, his teammate Bennett McIntosh got to run underneath an unforgiving South Dakota sun.
“I’m at a loss for words, and maybe that is the heat talking … I think it’ll hit me once I get in to the AC and come back out, how hot it really is,” McIntosh said.
But the heat couldn’t stop her, who was inspired by messages coming in through her AirPods from her mom, siblings, friends and teammate Kristina Schaefer, who was also out running in this heat. And these messages remind her of one of The 437 Project’s biggest messages.
“You are never alone,” McIntosh said. “So, if you are ever struggling, lean on those who love you, ask for help, like, there is so much support in this world and just do not be afraid to ask for help.”
