Coast to Coast for the Cure
Reported by Erik Smith
Web produced by Rachel L. Miller

P.J. is running from Key West, Fla. to the Mackinac Bridge.

It is a story of love and incredible human endurance. It is a dream unfolding in single footsteps, an epic odyssey across the American landscape, run in the hope of making a difference in the war on cancer.

It is P.J. Tannian's very personal mission to run for 276 straight days from Key West, Fla. to Michigan's Mackinac Bridge. His mission is to run for nine solid months, seven days a week in memory of his beloved grandfather and to run to raise funds for the cause.

P.J. has labeled his cross-country run "Coast to Coast for the cure," or C3 for short. It's hardly the type of thing one may expect from a new college grad who may probably take the bar exam one day like his father. And his father was Detroit's last police commissioner, Phillip Gerry Tannian.

P.J. trains for his 276-day run.

The C3 run has been in the planning stages for months, so P.J. Has been in intensive physical training at Mount Clemens General Hospital, fine tuning his body, the long hours of preparation ending after Thanksgiving.

Days later, with his dad at the wheel of the family motor home, the long journey from south to north began.

"When I watch my son, I feel frequently like I'm watching what my father must have been like as a young man," P.J.'s father says.

P.J.'s father drive a motor home along P.J.'s route.

For nine months, home for father and son will be the highway. P.J.'s father drives a mile or two, stops and waits. P.J. runs, gulps a drink, maybe eats a banana and after six or seven miles, falls asleep, only to get up and do the same again in a few hours.

There are visits to media and cancer centers, but P.J.'s heart remains in his legs, feet and in the 24 pairs of Nike shoes he will run through.

"When my mom was nine years old, she remembered hearing an announcement of finding a treatment for polio on the radio," P.J. says. "And I grew up, as did all my sisters, in a generation that basically didn't know polio. That's what I would like for my grandchildren when it comes to cancer."

P.J. will keep running until he reaches the Mackinac Bridge.

Grandpa Tannian's image is never out of sight, an hourly reminder of cancer's terrible cost and why a special young man his dad are sharing what must be at times a very lonely adventure across the width of America.

If you would like to put your heart into P.J.'s dream, you can catch up -- on the Web or on the road.

Click here for P.J.'s Web site, where you can read his journal, find out where he is now and donate to the cause.

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