Anthony Daunt, Groundworks Landscaping’s 32-year-old project manager, added to his lengthening list of ultra challenges a recent 127-mile, 46-hour Times Square-to-Montauk Lighthouse Skyline to Shoreline run that he did to raise money for children who have cancer.
The father of two daughters, Mila, 4, and Beatrice, 2, Daunt, with the encouragement of his wife, Erica, began raising money for pediatric cancer treatment and research in 2018 when he outraced fellow 25-to-29-year-olds in the 24-hour Spartan Ultra World Championships in Iceland, a grueling competition that included running up and down mountainous, windy terrain while satisfying during each 6.6-mile loop the demands of 25 obstacles that require speed, strength, and stamina to overcome.
At the time, he said, “There was snow on the mountain, 1,400 feet of elevation. You ran up to the top on every lap, went across a ridge, and then down a steep, slippery slope, hanging on to ropes that were nailed into the ground. . . . We started at noon and had to finish by noon the next day. There were only three hours of daylight. The rest I did with a headlight. . . .”
Since then, his daunting list has grown to include another Spartan Ultra, three Lake Placid Ironmans, seven marathons in seven days, the Moab 240 mountain-bike race, and competition in three Ironman races in three successive days last June, as a benefit for the Retreat’s domestic violence work here.
“The only thing harder [than his latest multi-marathon feat] was Moab, which took me 107 hours to do. . . . This wasn’t a race -– I had to motivate myself. At the end, I was in so much pain that I couldn’t think about it.”
“Your reach exceeded your grasp. . . .”
“Yes, I guess you could say that. It got so that I used hiking poles to keep me upright and to take some weight off my feet, whose bones were all bruised.”
He had chosen Alex’s Lemonade Stand, a nonprofit organization in suburban Philadelphia “that helps families who have a child suffering from cancer and want to find a cure” because it had been founded by girls who reminded him of his own daughters, Daunt said, adding that donations linked to his arduous run, which had as of last week totaled $10,000, were still being accepted through alexslemonade.org. The goal is $15,000.
Equipped with a headlamp, he set forth from Times Square “at around 4:30 in the morning on Saturday, December 14. I wanted to finish on my birthday. I just missed it, finishing at 1:50 a.m. on the 16th.”
Mark Barylski, during the first 10 hours, Andy Silich, who is Daunt’s father-in-law, Matt Zappoli, Ryan Connor, and Daunt’s brother Richie — for the final leg — spelled each other as Anthony Daunt’s crew, each of them seeing to it that he was hydrated and fed. He napped from 4:30 to 6:30 Sunday morning.
When he came through East Hampton Village at around 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, the 15th, “there were 20 to 25 people waiting for me by John Papas –- my kids, my in-laws, and some friends, including my physical therapist, Nicole Miksinski, who’s been putting me back together. . . . Yeah, that raised my spirits. I had 22 more miles to go, 16 to Montauk, and six from there to the Lighthouse.”
“If Richie hadn’t come when he did — he was with me from 10 a.m. on
Sunday to 2 a.m. on Monday, from Hampton Bays to Montauk — I probably wouldn’t have finished. He’d drive ahead of me, get out, and run back with juice and bananas and run with me to his car. He did that for 14 hours straight.”
“I ran through downtown Montauk at midnight, and some people –- Richie, my cousin Leo, my cousin Zoe, Erica, and my cousin Patrick Fallon –- went with me out to the Lighthouse, which was all lit up. . . . Yeah, the distance was about five marathons, a little less.”
And what would be next, Daunt was asked. “I want to do roughly 850 miles, though I don’t know when I will have time to do it. I might go back to Iceland, which has some of the harshest environments in the world . . . I want to do something there.”
