Just Call Him The Running Man

They call them ultramarathons. Races of 50 miles, 100 miles, meant to test the endurance of the spirit as much as of the body.

Ryan Donnelly of Toms River says there was a time when he ran ultramarathons, and even completed a few.

This summer, he intends to complete the biggest ultramarathon of his life, one that has taken him from a hospital bed to various spots around the country, all in preparation to run from High Point State Park to Cape May State Park -- 184 miles.

On the website 1eight4.com, where Donnelly and filmmaker George Lassik, an old friend from childhood, are documenting his journey, Donnelly says for a while, life got in the way of his fitness routines. He battled drug addiction, and when he got sober, he poured his energy into helping others fight the battle against similar demons.

“I have been clean for over five years,” he says.

The marine construction worker says he put on weight and stopped making time for the workouts that had once been part of his daily routine.

“All of the work I was putting in left me putting my health on the back burner,” says Donnelly, a 2001 graduate of Toms River North. “I put on a lot of weight, was not exercising like I used to and my body became toxic.”

On Aug. 31, 2014, Donnelly’s life came to a crossroads. Excruciating chest pains landed him in the hospital’s intensive care unit. He was diagnosed with Factor Five, a genetic disorder that affects blood clotting.

“It is easily manageable with medication and taking good care of yourself, which I obviously was not,” Donnelly said.

Visions of his wife and son being left without husband and father spurred him to action, and a month after his release from the hospital, he began running again. But he wanted a goal -- a big goal -- to mark his return to health.

“I’ve always wanted to run in my home state of New Jersey,” Donnelly says in the film trailer, below. So he came up with the plan to run from one end of the state to the other -- 184 miles -- in one day.

That day will come on Aug. 31, 2015 -- the one-year anniversary of the excruciating pains that changed his life.

In the meantime, Lassik and Donnelly have been documenting Donnelly’s training for the event, traveling around the country to interview famous and accomplished ultramarathoners, and garnering support for the film, which they hope to release in 2016.

Follow Donnelly’s journey on Facebook at the page 184 Film, or on the 1eight4.com website.