BATON ROUGE -- Sunday's Louisiana Marathon and Half Marathon will have around 4,300 runners from 48 states and 15 different countries. Two of those runners are best friends with unique stories. Their names are Jason Boschan and Jeremy Hall.Jason is attempting to run a half marathon in all 50 states to help find a cure for Alzheimer's after seeing a loved one struggle with dementia."My grandfather, a lifelong pediatrician was diagnosed with a rare form of dementia. I just wanted to start running a few races and maybe raise a little bit of money in his honor while he was still alive," Boschan said.Boschan's charity, Run4Papa, partnered with Northwestern Medicine to raise money for Alzheimer's and Dementia research. They are around Forty-Five thousand dollars away from reaching their goal of $400,000.Boschan came up with the idea of running a half marathon in all 50 states around 5 years ago."I'd run marathons on every continent and I was looking for the next challenge. I didn't want to run a marathon in 50 states, so I thought 50 states and 50 half marathons were doable," Boschan said.Louisiana is the 39th state where Boschan will run a half marathon. He's run a marathon at Mount Everest, the Great Wall of China, and even Antarctica. He says his next half marathon is a Wizard of Oz-themed race in Kansas. It will be the 40th state he's run a half marathon in. He hopes to have 43 states done by the end of the year.As for Hall, he is running to celebrate beating throat cancer.  He got the all-clear in October of last year."I got diagnosed in April 2024, lasted roughly about three or four months as far as treatment, surgeries, and all that good, fun, stuff to fully eradicate the disease," Hall said.Hall says he's running Sunday for himself, for cancer survivors, and for his best friend, who will be by his side.Permalink| Comments