SPOKANE, Wash. – Running, jogging, or even walking the 12-kilometer Bloomsday race is no easy feat.
How about bear-crawling the whole thing?
“It’s really focusing on the reason behind everything, and the purpose behind why I’m doing this, and knowing that, you know, through the strength of God, I could do anything,” Brenton Sconce said. “I’m showing people that we do recover and that there’s an amazing life to be had after the hard things that you do, including the recovery journey.”
Sconce attempts this Herculean feat to raise awareness for his BEAR foundation, which focuses on fundraising for addiction recovery aftercare scholarships.
“Really, to be able to establish community and resources and tools following their stay in rehab, that’s where really the foundation gets laid,” Sconce said. “And so, to be able to help people have access to that and not, you know, not be cut off because they can’t afford it, that’s the kind of stuff that goes through my mind and kind of helps me mentally stay focused and stay driven.”
Sconce has a whole team walking alongside him with the race, one that he said expects to last well over eight hours, long after the Bloomsday finish line is hauled away.
“When I heard it was seven-plus, seven and a half miles, I just thought, there’s just no way,” Brenton’s dad, Matthew, said. “How is he going to do this? But he’s just been committed and working hard this whole year and keeping his head in the right place.”
Sconce trained over 10 miles a week over the past 14 months, but never bear-crawled longer than five-and-a-half miles at a time.
If you want to help out, the link for his BEAR recovery foundation is here.
“Brenton is always when he puts his mind to something, he follows through,” Matthew Sconce said. “And we saw that even as a young kid in sports, he’d just give his all. And, so it’s the same thing here.”
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