A Postindustrial columnist and restaurateur writes about a fellow West Virginia chef who ran more than 315 miles in record-setting time through the mountains to promote mental health awareness.
A couple of years ago, I launched a series of root cellar-to-table dinners featuring dishes from my native West Virginia to celebrate my Appalachian Heritage and state-made products.
I brought in a different chef to head each dinner, including Donnie Orr.
Donnie and I have shared several kitchens over the years, and our ideals and values align in both the crafting of food and the importance of sourcing local.
But there’s more to Donnie than just the kitchen – he’s also an accomplished, extreme endurance runner.
In late June, he set out to run the entire Allegheny Trail, a rugged, mountainous path stretching across West Virginia—from the Mason-Dixon Line to the Appalachian Trail in Virginia – to raise money for a cause close to his heart.
Donnie Orr takes a break during his record-setting run to raise money for a mental health awareness organization.
When he told me he was going to do this run, I imagined he’d be running on paved paths, so I tried a small portion of the trail less than 4 miles long.
What I endured was seemingly endless mud, rutted horse tracks, and loads of bugs – it nearly finished me.
I walked out of the woods legitimately wrecked. Then it hit me: my grueling ordeal would be merely a light workout for Donnie.
And at that exact moment, he was somewhere past the 100-mile mark of a route nobody had even finished since 2008.
What made Donnie do this?
Donnie’s motivation comes from a personal place.
In 2007, his uncle, an Army veteran who taught him to operate a chainsaw and fish for trout, committed suicide.
At first, Donnie chose some destructive ways of dealing with his grief before eventually finding endurance sports as a way of coping.
“It’s so internal, and it’s so quiet,” he said, reflecting on the depression that can lead to suicide.
“You got to make noise. You got to speak up. You got to reach out. You got to shake the can. You got to let people know that you’re hurting and something’s wrong, and you got to let people help.”
Hoping to raise awareness about life-threatening depression, he decided he’d run more than 315 miles through the mountains to raise money for Bigger Than The Trail. This nonprofit uses trail running as a platform to advocate for mental health.
You can still contribute to Donnie’s effort to raise money for Bigger Than The Trail by clicking here.
Before Donnie’s recent run, no one had even completed the full length of the Allegheny Trail since 2008, and there was no record of how long it took or how they did it.
So Donnie and his support crew planned his run from scratch: 10 crew members and nine pace runners to join him in shifts, some of whom barely knew him.
A fellow endurance runner named Jesse signed on to run alongside him for 65 miles after what Donnie calls a casual meeting “just because that’s what ultra runners do.”
The low point of Donnie’s run wasn’t a wrong turn or a bad climb, though there were plenty of both. It was watching his friend Brian, who’d crewed for him, drive off on the morning of day five.
“Seeing him leave kind of really cracked something open,” Donnie said.
He cried on and off for close to two hours, with his pace runner Jesse beside him.
The duo veered off course and were forced to backtrack, leaving them far from the next station where the support crew was waiting with supplies, and they had to run seven more miles without food.
Despite the pain, setbacks, and challenges Donnie and his running partners endured, he managed to complete the Allegheny Trail in a new record time of 5 days, 17 hours, and 52 minutes.
In addition to this incredible accomplishment, he raised nearly $9,000 for Bigger Than The Trail.
You can still contribute to Donnie’s effort to raise money for Bigger Than The Trail by clicking here.
He thanks you for your support.
