2 kidney donors ran the Philly Marathon to spread a message of post-donor viability. Each is running 12 marathons in 12 months.

Shivering in the early-morning cold in Eakins Oval, Hilary Baude laced up her running shoes and took a few bites of an energy bar.

“There was a time,” she said with a laugh, “when I thought two marathons in a year was a lot.”

Those times are long past. Sunday’s Philadelphia Marathon was Baude’s 12th marathon in a year, including two Ironman triathlon competitions — the culmination of a feat of endurance aimed at drawing awareness to the national need for living kidney donors.

Baude donated her kidney to a man she’d never met before in 2021, after hearing of his plight — a five-year wait for a lifesaving organ transplant — on national news. She and her racing partner, Matt Cavanaugh, a fellow donor who heads the National Kidney Donor Organization, hope to show potential donors that they can continue a healthy, physically active life after donation.

“You can donate a kidney, save a life, and go right back to running or doing whatever physical activities you do right now,” Cavanaugh said. “And there’s no [better] way to demonstrate someone’s durability than to run a dozen marathons.”

Cavanaugh, who’s from Park City, Utah, and Baude were joined at marathon events over the weekend by local kidney donors, recipients, and staff from Penn Medicine’s kidney transplant program. Mary Cate Wilhelm, a physician assistant at Penn, said she heard about Baude and Cavanaugh’s “One Kidney, 12 Marathons” project and worked with the transplant program to sponsor their run.

Many people believe that donating a kidney will negatively affect your health, Wilhelm said. “But the reality is, you only need one kidney — it’s more than capable of handling everything,” she said. Many of the kidney donors she works with, she said, are surprised at how quickly they returned to their normal lives after donations.

“They go, ‘Hold on, I just donated a kidney, and it was not as much of a big deal as I thought it was,’” she said. “They say, ‘Why aren’t more people doing this?’ And I’m like, ‘Welcome to my soapbox.’”

A number of runners connected to Penn’s kidney program also participated in the half marathon and 8K run on Saturday.

Colleen Gielda-Smith, a living donor transplant navigator at Penn, ran in the 8K. Gielda-Smith began running in 2015 to prepare to donate a kidney to her husband: “I wanted to be in the best health that I could be in order to donate,” she said. “I wanted to give my husband the best kidney that I could, and once I found out he needed a kidney, it was a turning point to focus on my own health.”

Adam Hyman, a kidney recipient who grew up in Bustleton and now lives in Center City, said running is “basically my sanity.” Though he wasn’t able to participate in Saturday’s half, he’s a veteran runner and has competed in 38 marathons and nearly 70 half marathons.

“I’ve had some complications, some speed bumps [since my kidney transplant], but I’m here to talk about it. I work full time, I’m able to run, I swim a lot — pretty much a normal life,” Hyman said.

He received a kidney from a childhood friend four years ago. Since he was a preteen, he’s dealt with a rare digestive disorder that’s led to a number of health complications, including kidney problems that eventually required him to go on dialysis.

He and his donor get dinner together once a month. “It’s the least I can do,” he said. “It’s ridiculous how nice some people can be.”

Cavanaugh, an Army veteran and Bronze Star recipient who served in Iraq, donated a kidney in 2021 after cold-calling Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to ask if any patients there needed a kidney.

“I basically graduated from West Point and went right to Iraq for the first few years,” he said. “There were specific instances where I felt incredibly helpless — and my life was saved by someone else. It wasn’t hard for me to put myself in the headspace of someone who is needing a kidney who feels as though they’ve done everything that they possibly can and no one is coming for them.”

In 2022, in a bid to raise awareness for kidney donation, Cavanaugh ran four 155-mile ultramarathons, including a race in Antarctica that he won. His first ultralong race was seven months after he donated his kidney.

This year, he said, he wanted to raise awareness closer to home. “It’s cool to demonstrate that a recent kidney donor can do tough things, but we want to bring that to major American cities,” he said.

About 5,000 people in Philadelphia are awaiting an organ transplant, CBS3 reported in April, and Penn’s kidney donor program says people in the area typically wait about two to six years before they are able to get a donated kidney.

Baude, a kindergarten teacher who’s run the Philadelphia Marathon twice before, said she hopes that she and Cavanaugh can encourage other potential donors to take the leap. She finished Sunday’s race in 3 hours, 34 minutes and 53 seconds.

“What Matt and I have really set out to do this year is to show people that you can continue doing whatever it is you do after donation — that doesn’t have to be running. It can be as simple as taking your dog for a walk, gardening,” she said. “I think a lot of people have the mindset that after you donate a kidney, you’re somehow debilitated. We’re just out to dispel that myth.”

Cavanaugh, who finished in 2 hours, 54 minutes, and 19 seconds, said after the race that he’d appreciated the opportunity to represent kidney donors — and to encourage Philadelphians to consider donating. He will complete his 12th marathon of the year in December in Honolulu.

“My only regret [about donating a kidney] is that I could only do it once,” he said.