A long-distance runner from Beaverton is taking on sun, brush and rough terrain in an effort to cover a historic 210-mile Boy Scout trail in three days or a bit longer.

Jeff Christian, 33, left early Friday morning from the head of the Midland to Mackinac Trail near the Kawkawlin flooding dam off Shearer Road in Mills Township. A cedar arch and a map mark the trail head, and it ends in downtown Mackinaw City.

Christian specializes in ultra marathons, runs that are longer than the traditional marathon’s 26 miles. He’s run all over the country. Two weeks ago, he ran a 100-mile race across Ohio in 20 hours 30 minutes, taking eighth place overall. The previous week, he ran 42 miles in Vermont. “It was really mountainous,” he said.

“I love being outside, I love nature,” he said. “I’m really grateful for the fact that I can do something like this. Not everybody can. Not everybody wants to try that.”

Christian racked up an impressive record as a runner before graduating from Beaverton High School in 1992.

When he was 14, he placed 11th at a National Amateur 1,000-meter race for 13- and 14-year-olds in Reno, Nev. Before that, he placed third in the state cross country meet. In 1991 he won the state Class B boys’ cross country meet, and he was state champ in the 3,200-meter run with a time of nine minutes 18.8 seconds at the Class B boys’ track and field state championships. After graduation, he attended college for a year, then returned home to work in a factory for 10 years.

“I didn’t even really exercise at all,” he said. “I started to get back in shape because I was a little bit portly.”

About three years ago, he reconnected with running, competing in some local five- and 10-kilometer races. Then, he saw an ad for “Dances with Dirt,” a 50k ultra marathon based at Pinckney in Livingston County.

“I ran it and I won,” he said, referring to the 2004 race. “I kind of got hooked right away because I won my first one.”

Christian doesn’t brave the woods and the elements alone. His wife, Melanie, usually accompanies him, driving a van full of food and other supplies and waiting for her husband at major road crossings. He also has a three-person crew.

“They’ll help me when I’m tired,” he said. “They’ll jog with me in sections to keep my spirits up. There’s a lot of highs and lows when you’re going that long.”

Midlander Joseph Bevirt, who has advocated and cared for the trail since taking Explorer Scouts across it in the 1950s, said it will be rough, challenging going for Christian.

“It is a wonderful experience with nature at its very best because you’re fighting the elements,” said Bevirt, who is 76 and has hiked the trail nine times. “It is one of North America’s most historic trails.”

Bevirt has volunteered to take cell phone calls from Christian anytime during the run. Although trees with two-inch-wide blue blazes of paint mark the trail, it’s possible some of the trees might have been removed, and there’s likely to be a good deal of brush along the route, Bevirt said.

Christian might glimpse bear, deer, turkeys and, primarily in the Pigeon River State Forest, elk. He’ll see woods change from pine to oak to maple and find wild flowers of many colors.

Christian already has run on the trail, and he found some places where markings weren’t the best. A section at St. Helen wasn’t marked well and he got turned around, he said.

Bevirt has researched the trail and said it is 8,500 years old and was made by American Indians’ feet as they walked it at least three times a year.

Braves hunted and fished along it. Women gathered berries, greens and nuts. Indians also used it as a route for trading copper nuggets and furs.

Christian has heard of long-distance runners seeing trees that look like people or falling asleep while running. But he said he hasn’t seen any mirages or dozed on his feet.

His preventive is drinking fluids regularly and eating for energy — sometimes energy gels and bars, at other times soup or meat sandwiches.

Sometimes he carries a hydration pack that contains a water-filled bladder and has a straw for sucking out the water, other times he carries bottles of water in his hands.

In the lonely hours of running, he listens to just about any kind of music on an MP3 player he carries along.

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