CENTRE COUNTY — Every year, somewhere around mile 123, reality starts setting in for Marc Warren.
The excitement of leaving Pittsburgh before sunrise is long gone. The finish line still feels far away. His legs hurt. His body hurts. The miles begin playing tricks on his mind.
And yet, every year, he keeps pedaling.
“I said I was going to do it and I can do it,” Warren said. “There’s no reason I can’t finish.”
On July 14, Warren will once again climb onto his bicycle before dawn and begin a 150-mile journey from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland to raise money for the Jana Marie Foundation, an organization focused on youth mental health education and suicide prevention.
Only this year feels different.
Warren originally set a fundraising goal of $20,000. He has already reached it.
Instead of celebrating and stopping, he raised the bar again.
“I didn’t want people to think like, ‘Oh, I have $50 I want to give or $25 but that isn’t the goal so I’ll hold on,’” Warren said. “It was just really giving people the incentive to still give.”
The new goal is now $22,000.
For Warren, the ride itself has not changed. Every year, he begins near Point State Park in Pittsburgh before making the long climb toward the Eastern Continental Divide before descending toward Cumberland.
“The hard part is about the 123-mile mark on the Eastern Continental Divide,” Warren said. “From Pittsburgh to that point, you’re going uphill the whole time. You don’t know it. You’re always going uphill.”
Then comes the mental battle.
“It becomes a head game after that because you just keep going,” he said.
Still, Warren already believes this year may be his strongest ride yet.
“My training is coming along really well,” he said. “I expect the ride to go even better than last year or the year before.”
The ride itself may be physically demanding but the reason behind it remains personal.
Warren said after years of raising money for various nonprofits, he found himself searching for another cause that mattered deeply to him. Then came difficult conversations and painful losses involving people in his broader circle who lost loved ones to suicide.
He believes organizations like the Jana Marie Foundation provide something many adults wish they had growing up.
“I don’t think there’s any adult that I know that could not have benefited from what the Jana Marie Foundation does when they were coming up through the system,” Warren said.
The organization’s work becomes even more important now as Warren said the foundation recently lost a significant grant.
“This really helps them,” Warren said. “People donating fifty dollars or a hundred dollars or five hundred dollars, it goes right directly to the kids.”
The ride has also become something else.
It has become part of Warren’s own mental health.
“I help the Jana Marie Foundation but this ride is a large part of my mental health as well,” he said. “Sometimes I start in Pittsburgh with a heavy mental backpack — business challenges, life challenges, whatever — and hopefully by the end of the ride, that backpack is a lot lighter.”
That perspective becomes even more remarkable considering Warren will turn 70 years old this October.
“I want people to know that I’m not an anomaly,” Warren said. “There’s no reason I can’t ride my bike this far.”
He hopes others take something simpler from his story.
“I’m not saying to challenge anybody to do 150 miles,” he said. “I’m just saying, just exercise, move, get out there and do something.”
When Warren finally reaches Cumberland roughly 13 hours later, he already knows what comes next.
A few pictures.
A shower.
A plate of spaghetti.
A glass of wine.
And the satisfaction that comes with keeping a promise to himself.
“When I stop at the one-mile mark and I know I have one mile to go and I’ve just ridden 149 miles,” Warren said, “that’s the feeling right there.”
For Warren, the message has always been simple.
“Keep pedaling no matter what.”
For those looking to donate toward Marc Warren’s Ride for Hope, visit janamariefoundation.org/marc.
