Corvallis Knights: Coach completes 419-mile run for a good cause (2024)

KEVIN HAMPTONFor Mid-Valley Media

Ed Knaggs was running on Manhattan Beach as training for the Los Angeles Marathon when he had an epiphany.

Knaggs, who had coached the Wenatchee Applesox for 14 years before coming to the Corvallis Knights as an assistant coach, had been mulling over doing a run between the two cities to kick off the baseball season.

The idea had been tumbling around Knagg’s mind for about six years or so but he was searching for a real reason to put the plan into effect.

Knaggs typically chose to listen to music while on training runs but that day he decided to check out Jon Gordon’s podcast. That specific episode happened to have Malachi O’Brien as a guest. O’Brien, a pastor from Missouri, was running a marathon a day in an attempt to set a Guinness World Record (he eventually succeeded, completing 153 consecutive marathons).

O’Brien was running to raise awareness for adoption, foster care and mental health for youth.

“So as I was running it just hit me really hard, like (snaps fingers) here it is, here’s my why,” Knaggs said. “Because I’ve always been interested in doing something for adolescent mental health and listening to him talk, it just clicked because my own son Cory struggled very, very heavily with his mental health. Cory ended up at the Trillium Family Services Children’s Farm Home in Corvallis and as he would say, he never would have graduated. He wouldn’t have lived to graduate from high school.”

A former player of Knaggs’ in Wenatchee had a son who died of suicide and the family wanted donations to go to Only7Seconds in Chelan, Washington. Only7Seconds works with the Applesox, so Knaggs had two organizations to run for, one for each city.

Knaggs decided to call his run the Opening Day Run because it would lead into the start of the West Coast League and the thought of opening day usually evokes excitement and hopefulness of a great season among baseball fans.

“And just the parallels for me with mental health and how every day if we have hope, that’s a good thing,” Knaggs said.

Knaggs met a few times with representatives of the Knights, Applesox, Only7Seconds and Trillium to make sure everything was OK to go and then got to work.

They put together a logo and then one of Knaggs’ former players produced a full website, www.openingdayrun.com. Knaggs’ daughter, Emily Hardie, helped put together social media for the run. That included regular posts and short video clips during the venture.

Knaggs plotted out a course that would take him 419 miles over 28 days.

Then he had to find someone willing to drive along the route in an RV while he ran and be there for breaks and any potential problems.

Knaggs figured his retired brother Steve might be able to drive part of the time and ran the idea past him.

“I brought up the idea to him hoping he could do half of it where he could drive an RV that we would rent so I had kind of a local hotel,” Knaggs said. “And he said, well, how many days is it going to take? And I said, well, you’d be gone a month. And he said, I’m doing the whole thing. So that was lucky.”

On May 1, the two brothers set out.

Knaggs ran about 10 miles in the mornings and another five in the evenings. He continued to work remotely during his down time.

“Physically it was better to split the 15 miles up and then just logistically to work, I had to split it,” Knaggs said.

He said the 10-mile runs could be a grind for him and the winds in the Columbia Gorge provided a stiff challenge for about five days.

Although running 15 miles a day in an uncontrolled environment isn’t easy, Knaggs wanted to do it all in 28 days straight with no rest days.

“I wanted that challenge every day of getting up and facing that run,” Knaggs said. “Because running for me, it is a mental exercise much more than physical for me. And it all kind of fit together with that theme.”

Although the Gorge was windy, the weather stayed pretty good overall for most of the run. Only two of the runs were marred by heavy rain which left everything drenched. And there were no overly hot days.

Knaggs was aware of possible run-ins with wildlife and was particularly concerned about rattlesnakes in the eastern parts of both states. He did see a few but they had met their demise due to traffic.

“We got to see elk and some deer but most of the life was domesticated, just horses and cows,” he said.

There was plenty of horn honking at Knaggs when he was out on the roads. Some of it was supportive, some not so much.

“You could kind of tell,” he said. “Some of them would just lay on their horn, that was usually a person honking at you. There were people that kind of tapped their horn, you know, beep beep, two or three times. Or they would wave.

“I noticed a couple of truckers who as they were going by, they had their camera up and they were filming me.”

Knaggs had members of a local baseball team run with him out of Wenatchee and six miles out of Corvallis he was joined by Knights’ partner relationship manager Heather O’Malley. With about a mile and a half to go before the finish at the Children’s Farm Home, two of the Trillium doctors joined the run.

More joined in near the end and some people held signs in support. Local media was on hand, including Mike Parker.

Knaggs was pleased he had not only finished but did so without any injury or illness problems.

And there were no more 4:30 a.m. wake-up calls to hit the road.

Will he do it again?

“I’ve always thought it was one and done,” Knaggs said. “Whether the whole idea of Opening Day Run, does it take on a new life of some kind to help with adolescent mental health? I can’t totally say no, nothing will ever happen again with it.

“But it was a neat adventure. We were certainly able to raise some awareness and some money.”