Costa Mesa resident to run 78.6 miles for charity

Charles Bauknecht will do all he can to help raise money for cystic fibrosis. He’ll push himself to the limit. He’ll go the extra mile.

This is not figurative language. It’s literal.

Bauknecht, a Costa Mesa resident, will run three consecutive marathons to try to raise $30,000 for cystic fibrosis. He’ll start running on Saturday night at 10, and plans to join the competitors in the Surf City Marathon Sunday morning. When he’s done, he will have logged 78.6 miles.

“It will take 13 to 14 hours,” said Bauknecht, who noted the project called, Tri-fecta, has raised about $20,000. “It’s a distance I have never done before ... I’m blessed with the ability to run long distances.”

Bauknecht, 34, a personal trainer who works in Newport Beach, is not related to anyone who has the fatal disease. He’s actually never met a person with cystic fibrosis, an inherited chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive of about 30,000 children and adults in the United States, 70,000 worldwide (according to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Web site). Also on the site: In 2006, the predicted median age of survival was 37 years.

However, Bauknecht is planning to meet a person with cystic fibrosis on Sunday.

Toward the end of the Surf City Marathon, Bauknecht is set to run the last few miles with Corey Goetz, a Laguna Niguel teenager who has cystic fibrosis. His sister also has the disease.

Kids like them have inspired Bauknecht.

He became passionate about helping people with cystic fibrosis when he met Bob Waltos, a Newport Beach resident who is the president of the Southern California chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Waltos’ insurance/investment firm also backs cystic fibrosis and Bauknecht, listing the details of the charity project on the company’s Web site: www.waltosgroup.com.

Waltos came to know Bauknecht when he received a gift certificate for free training and a friend told him to go Bauknecht. The two became friends and Bauknecht wanted to know more and more about helping people with cystic fibrosis.

“He’s genuine,” Waltos said of Bauknecht. “He’s caring and a person who is willing to make the sacrifice for something he believes in. I’m very proud to be associated with him.”

— Steve Virgen