On September 12th, Brady McDonald finished his fiftieth 50-kilometer run in just 50 days, running each one in a different state, including Alaska and Hawaii. That’s approximately 31 miles of running, completing a new state every day for almost two months. That’s 1,553 miles on foot — roughly 13,000 more by RV — with no rest days.
But those numbers aren’t even what’s most important. All told, Brady and his team raised over $1 million for Make-A-Wish-America.
At roughly $10,000 for each, the $1,000,000 that Brady and his team raised is enough to grant 100 wishes for children facing critical illnesses — 100 kids and their families who get something to look forward to during the hardest stretch of their lives.
“Imagine 100 kids in a room, sick and hooked up to machines,” Brady told us. “[Helping them] is way more important than some guy running across the country with his family.”
From a Hospital Bed to a Mission
Just a few years ago, Brady wasn’t even a runner. But like anything he does, it’s zero-to-100. He found running on his path to sobriety, and says the challenge of it gave him purpose. His first long race was the Keys 50, and he trained for about three months, won it, then spent the next three days in the hospital with rhabdomyolysis from severe dehydration.
He kept going anyway, running several more 100-milers, raising money for charity during each. Then came the Moab 240 — 101 hours of nonstop running. By his own admission, much of his motivation to this point was ego-driven. It took a moment of faith to redirect him.”God gave me a vision,” Brady said.
“Use your legs to help people, and stop serving your own ego.”
Once he turned to the question of how to help, Make-A-Wish was a natural fit. Brady’s wife, Kristy, lost her arm at 15 after being run over by a bull, and she was granted a wish as a teenager. She knew firsthand what a wish can mean to a child whose whole identity has just changed.”The children in those hospital beds don’t get to choose whether their pain ends,” he said. “They have to keep going.”
Brady and Kristy had been raising money for years, even going back to when they were “just friends.” Brady says he’s always been passionate about giving back, and he’s found that people are more than willing to give, if they know they’re giving to a reputable charity.
Leading into Brady’s run of the Arizona Monster 300 in April of this year, he set a goal to raise $300,000. In record heat, he went 10 miles without water and spent nearly two hours in full-body cramps at an aid station. He didn’t quit, and those kids were the reason why. That race raised $304,000.
“If you make the purpose bigger than yourself, you are capable of so much more than you think.”
Two weeks later, Brady and Kristy decided to condense their original 50k-in-50-states plan from a year to just 50 days. Seven weeks after that, the family of four, plus Sunny the dog, found themselves packing up.
A Hard Start
The plan was to start in Florida, traveling with two Class C RVs provided by Camping World, one for Brady and his family, the other for the crew. Each motorhome would tow a truck as an additional support vehicle. Along the way, they’d raise awareness and donations for the Make-A-Wish program, finding opportunities for collaborations with influencers, run clubs, and volunteers as they happened.
The first 10 days were tough. Brady’s body hadn’t adapted to the daily mileage, and the team was figuring out how to run, film, travel, and sleep in a single day. Then, most of the original support crew left.
Brady started driving one of the RVs himself after running 31 miles a day. Some nights, he didn’t get to bed until midnight, which quickly took a toll. Yet he and Kristy agreed that even if it came down to just them, the kids, and a pickup truck going from hotel to hotel, they would do the best they could.
Around day 30, a hamstring locked up and wouldn’t release for nearly a week. When the pain got bad, Brady broke the day into single miles, and sometimes into six-minute stretches. Each time, he came back to the same thought: whatever he was feeling was temporary, and it was a choice. For the kids he was running for, it wasn’t.
And over time, social media posts brought volunteers who, as Brady put it, were fully focused on the mission. Eventually, they found a rhythm, and Brady’s body adjusted.
Life on the Road
Images by Brady McDonald
Every morning began with a Sunrise Wish Run, a community 5k organized with local running clubs. Turnout ranged from a handful of people to a crowd of hundreds in New York City. Brady used each one to share the same message about purpose. Then he ran the remaining miles, often with a few locals who had never gone that far before.
The RV became the recovery center. When Brady finished, he got into a cold plunge, took a quick shower, and then rested in compression boots during some of the drive. Every extra minute on the road meant a minute less of sleep, so the team planned around that.
While they might’ve gone in with a plan for diligent nutrition, Brady says it became inevitable that he would be operating at a caloric deficit. His body was just using so much energy that he could basically eat as much as he wanted each day and still lose weight and lean muscle. But the maple syrup he carried in his running vest — in true Canadian fashion — must’ve helped, because he says that, all in all, he only lost roughly 6% body fat and roughly 4 pounds of lean muscle.
In the evenings, the family rarely had time to relax around a campfire. All the camp supplies they brought — chairs, fire pit, S’more supplies, etc. — hardly got used because they were moving so far. But Brady says the space inside the RVs to recover, with his family close by, made the pace possible. And it allowed them to welcome new friends and volunteers along the way, sometimes testing the sleeping capacity to its max.
The Kids Who Kept Him Going
Images by Brady McDonald
On day one, Brady ran with a father named Connor, who had given his kidney to his son Bo, a wish kid. It was the first of many encounters Brady describes as being placed in his path to remind him why he was running.
In Utah, around day 35, he met Ryder, a young boy with leukemia. Ryder’s mom had to work 4 hours away from the hospital to keep the family’s insurance. Then Make-A-Wish stepped in. Even before his wish was granted, they surprised him with gifts and experiences, including tickets to a Raiders game. His mom said it changed everything. He started waking up excited, with something to hope for.
“It’s easy to say your donations give hope to a child. But to hear it from his mom, that’s literally what happened. And he didn’t even have his wish yet,” Brady said.
The team also ran for Isaac, an 11-year-old from near the McDonald’s home in Southwest Florida who passed away from a brain tumor. Brady ran with Isaac’s picture on his shirt and invited other families to send photos and stories of their children, so those kids could come along too. It was always about learning their stories and helping fulfill their wishes.
Brady will tell you that the actual physical feat of running this many miles in such a short time was just a means of getting people’s attention. “This wasn’t to get a world record or to say I did something hard,” he said. “This was to raise $1,000,000 to grant 100 wishes.” For the sponsors and everyone who donated along his journey, their real contribution, in his view, wasn’t helping a guy run across the country. It was helping change 100 children’s lives.
Reflecting on the Journey
Images by Brady McDonald
Looking back, Brady says his favorite run came in North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It was the first time he had run alone in a while, the tunes were grooving in his ears, and he looked up to see a wild horse standing solitary on the point of a peninsula bluff.
“It was the most insane thing,” he said, “It didn’t need to be there, it wasn’t clear to me how it had even gotten there, and it just stayed there looking down at me for almost 20 minutes until we reached its elevation.”
Bison were a highlight in that park too, but so were his meetups with popular runners like Cam Haines and Ashley Paulson. He says he connected with them through social media and says he must have sent over 1,000 DMs in the lead-up and throughout the journey.
But those who did respond and join him knew what it was all about. “These people have big hearts,” he said, “and they didn’t make it about them at the end of the day. It was all about the kids.”
What We Can All Give
Asked what he hopes people take away from his experience, Brady didn’t mention running at all.
“We all have some version of a gift,” he said. “Maybe it’s making money. Maybe it’s teaching. Maybe it’s taking out the garbage for the older lady next door. How could we use those gifts once in a while to give a little more?”
His gift happened to be his legs. The 100 wishes are proof of what that gift became when he pointed it at someone other than himself.
The run is over, but the need isn’t. Every $10,000 grants another wish.
