College frosh will run marathon for charity
BY TOM CAIAZZA
Staff Writer

MATAWAN - Many people run marathons to support finding a cure. But one Matawan native is running to fund the care.

Dan daCosta, 18, will tackle the 26.2-mile ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 5 as a member of Team Continuum, a charity that raises money for better cancer treatment, not research.

The New York City marathon, which begins on the Staten Island side of the Verrazano Bridge and winds through the streets and avenues of the other four boroughs before ending in Central Park, has been held every year since 1970 and will attract an estimated 37,000 participants this year.

DaCosta will be one of them.

"I am in good shape right now and I wanted to run a marathon," daCosta said of his reason for running.

DaCosta applied for the lottery that chooses the participants but was denied entry into the race. Instead of opting to enjoy the race from his living room, daCosta was hooked up with Team Continuum through a family friend and found that it was a charity he was willing to support.

Team Continuum is a 3-year-old charity that places runners in foot races around the world in order to raise money for cancer. Most charities of its kind raise money for cancer research, but the money Team Continuum raises - some $2 million to date according to the organization's Internet Web site - goes to treatment facilities and in many cases into the hands of patients themselves.

DaCosta, who lost his grandfather to cancer, wanted to help a charity that would affect those with cancer now, not the next generation that would benefit from research.

"It's not going to help people now," daCosta said of cancer research. "The people who are suffering now may not have the money to get the care they need now."

DaCosta, a freshman at City University of New York at Albany, ran cross country at Matawan Regional High School. He became enamored with the sport and said running helps a person think more clearly and provides the "runner's high." Through all his history in the sport, running a marathon was never something he thought he would be able to do.

"I never pictured myself here," daCosta said. "Last winter I decided I wanted to run."

After being turned down by the marathon lottery process, daCosta turned to family friend and Holmdel resident Frank Somma, the author of several self-help books and president of the Cooley's Anemia Foundation, who told him about Team Continuum.

DaCosta said that preparing for a marathon, while difficult, is not what most people think.

"You don't need to run 26.2 miles in practice," he said.

DaCosta said he ran between 4 and 8 miles each weekday and saved his longer training runs for weekends. Each week he would ratchet up the mileage and got up to about 20 miles, he said.

DaCosta has a goal of raising $2,000 for Team Continuum and is nearly halfway to that goal.

As far as personal goals, he is shooting to run the distance in three-and-a-half hours, but said that just finishing the race will be an accomplishment.

"Finishing the marathon will be an amazing feeling," daCosta said. "Having accomplished 26 miles is an amazing feeling."