(LifeSiteNews) — Pro-lifers are gearing up to walk, run, and witness for the unborn in this year’s “A-Cross America Relay,” the largest-spanning pro-life event in the world. 

The massive pro-life relay is designed for massive impact: Relay participants, known as LIFE Runners, wear shirts nudging onlookers to “Remember the Unborn” as they walk or run 5K legs on the relay course, which spans the continental U.S., or from anywhere in the world.

The launch points for the relay course kick off from the west and east coasts in San Francisco and New York City, and from the north and south in Fargo, North Dakota, and Austin, Texas, triggering a relay timed to converge at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, on Sunday, October 25. LIFE Runners will then walk or run the final mile to St. Benedict’s Abbey.

Meanwhile, other pro-lifers will run, walk, or simply wear their pro-life witness in their own neighborhoods, on their own time, from September 4 to October 25. Readers can register for the relay for free, choosing their own 5K leg, using the promo code LIFER at https://relay.liferunners.org/. Those who can’t do the relay, including infants and the elderly, can wear the jersey as a pro-life witness.

The relay is designed to literally save babies and “pierce the culture of death” through the power of the “Remember the Unborn” message emblazoned on the shirts and jackets of its participants. 

Dr. Pat Castle, former Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and founder of LIFE Runners, told LifeSiteNews that a 2023 study found that 60 percent of abortion-minded mothers would choose life if they encountered just one “supportive person or encouraging message.”

As an example of this simple but powerful phenomenon, Castle has shared the story of a woman who told him that she had visited the Hard Rock Cafe while in a crisis pregnancy in her early 20s.

“I was like, Lord, if you want me to not have this abortion, I need a sign, I need encouragement,” she told Castle. While at the Hard Rock, she noticed a mural on a back wall that said, “The birth of rock and roll” — and the sun was highlighting only the word “birth.” That was all it took to save her baby, she told Castle.

The relay launch points were purposefully chosen, he explained, to maximize the chance of saving babies by witnessing to secular, liberal areas where women are more likely to choose to abort their children. 

“They’re going to places where the message needs to be heard,” Castle said. For example, LIFE Runners will kick off the relay from its southern point at the University of Texas in Austin, a liberal “blue bubble” of Texas. A significant chunk of mothers who abort their babies are women in college, he pointed out. 

“A kickoff in Austin helps little babies literally have birthdays,” Castle said.

He explained that the “A-Cross America Relay” is a “catalyst” that “churns up people’s interest and activism and movement and conversation” about abortion.

Castle used the analogy of throwing “seed” to explain the purpose of the relay because of the LIFE Runners’ witness to the value of the unborn with their jerseys, which he compared to a kind of “cassock” or “habit.” 

“That seed is going out there and it’s going to fall on rocky ground, on thorny ground, and on fertile ground,” Castle said.

The LIFE Runners will also pray for the unborn and their mothers, including in front of abortion mills, at the beginning and end of the relay.

Castle shared about a recent biking trek he made in Morocco while wearing his LIFE Runner jersey to show how the jersey’s pro-life message can help evangelize in addition to saving lives.

Interestingly, his pro-life message was met with much support, and “not a single negative response” in a country that is 99 percent Muslim. Castle shared that he had a lot of “good” and “joyful” conversations with Moroccans along the way, and especially because the LIFE Runner jersey displays a cross on the front, it opened up the door for conversations about Christianity. One person asked Castle, “Why are you a Christian?” and he used the opportunity to share the Gospel.

Castle encourages all relay participants to pray during their 5K legs the LIFE Runners Creed to end abortion and heal the wounds caused by abortion. The creed sets their intention to “run as a prayer” and invokes the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Padre Pio, and St. Michael the Archangel. 

Register to become a LIFE Runner here.

Order LIFE Runner “Remember the Unborn” shirts, jackets, and accessories here.

LIFE Runners, which now has over 25,000 members, was recently inducted into the International Sports Faith Hall of Fame at the headquarters of the NFL’s Chicago Bears.

Inspired by an extraordinary feat 

The A-Cross America Relay was born after Castle met another faith-filled runner, Jeff Grabosky. At the time, Grabosky was completing an extraordinary and rare feat of running solo from coast to coast across the United States, praying as he ran. Only the 43rd person to complete an ocean-to-ocean run, Grabosky came to write about his four-month journey in the book Running with God Across America, in which he explains how he prayed a decade of the Rosary for each of the roughly 3,500 intentions he received at the time.  

Castle had already founded LIFE Runners when one of his lieutenants told him about Grabosky. The two got in touch, and Castle found that Grabosky had conveniently been forced to pause his run as he waited to receive a replacement wheel for a stroller that he pushed as he ran, in which he carried his tent, sleeping bag, and other belongings.  

The two met for Mass and breakfast, and Castle offered to give Grabosky his LIFE Runners jersey if he would send him a photo of himself wearing it on one of the remaining days of the trip. According to Castle, Grabosky sent him a picture of himself by a sign that read “Castle Creek.” When Castle pointed out what he was sure was an intentional homage to his name, Grabosky said he never noticed the sign. “Coincidence? I think not,” Castle said. 

The two stayed in touch, and Castle eventually came to Grabosky with an idea: “I said, ‘Jeff, what if we did this trip across America again, and could you map it, and we’ll get the hundred LIFE runners and we’ll just all do it together. And he said, ‘Absolutely,” Castle related. 

For about a year and a half, they planned a coast-to-coast route, launching the inaugural A-Cross America relay on Palm Sunday 2013. 

Castle explained that when they planned this first path, “whenever possible, Jeff and I would search for abortion facilities and route it by the abortion facilities, to put prayer pressure, to put holy pressure on those places.” 

The relay “drew a lot of attention” to LIFE Runners, as Castle pointed out. “We kind of exploded.” LIFE Runner membership expanded from 170 at the end of 2011 to 1,791 members by the end of 2013 after the first A-Cross America Relay had been completed. 

In 2015, they decided to add a north-south route across the country to make a cross, and in 2016, they allowed people to “adopt” 5K segments while running “anywhere in the world during the relay time period.” 

This change has also allowed the “Remember the Unborn” witness to expand in creative ways. For example, in Boise, Idaho, LIFE Runners have adopted a segment by running from a local abortion facility to their pregnancy help center. On the island of Fiji, hundreds of LIFE Runners participate in an all-night walk/run to altogether “adopt” the state of Utah. 

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