But that's just what Arnold native George Chmiel Jr. did. In October he'll run 155 miles across the sands of western Egypt, braving 140-degree temperatures, scorpions and exhaustion to raise money and awareness in honor of a 3-year-old girl born with a rare illness.

"I'm going to take on this challenge. I want to make it count, impact someone's life," Chmiel said.

The little girl is Luci Horvath, the daughter of a friend Chmiel met while working at Merrill Lynch about four years ago. Her family lives in Texas.

Luci was born with panhypopituitarism, a rare, life-threatening condition that prevents her body from making hormones that affect everything from growth to heart and lung function to immunity from common colds. With steady doses of medication, she should be able to lead a mostly normal life, but she'll never be able to run the kind of race Chmiel is taking on, her mother said.

"It's like stepping out for her. She'll never be able to do that herself, but George doing this in her name means so much to us," Jolie Horvath said. "I can't wait until she's old enough to understand. We'll tell her what George is doing for her."

Chmiel, who now lives in Boston, said he was inspired first by the love and strength of the Horvath family, and then by the people who have come forward to support him.

By running the Sahara race, he's trying to raise $25,000 for the MAGIC Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports families with children who have growth conditions. So far, he has raised about $10,000.

Chmiel wasn't always a runner. At St. Mary's High School in Annapolis, where he graduated in 1999, Chmiel played baseball, lacrosse and other sports. But about three years ago he injured his wrist and never fully recovered. Unable to play as he used to, he turned to running and has completed eight marathons in the past two years.

But the Sahara race is something else. It's organized by RacingThePlanet, which also runs races through the Gobi Desert in China, Chile's Atacama Desert and Antarctica.

To prepare, Chmiel has stocked up on blister kits and a headlamp, and has been practicing on steep trails for four to five hours at a time while toting 25 to 30 pounds of gear. Recently he took a practice run in California's Death Valley, despite one park ranger's attempt to stop him.

"You're in this barren, arid inferno. It's hard to breathe, then you put the pack on with the weight, and it's incredibly difficult," Chmiel said of Death Valley. "But those are the conditions I'll be in out in the Sahara."

Still, getting in shape for the race concerns Chmiel less than the desert, where he'll have to run for long stretches and sometimes alongside the snakes and scorpions that emerge at night.

That also worries Suzan Chmiel, who said she'll be reading her son's Sahara blog entries from her home in Arnold.

"Of course we're concerned, but along with the concern goes a great deal of pride," she said. "Pride in his desire to do something like this, and to take something that's a challenge in his own life and turn it into something for Luci."

For more information or to donate, visit the Web site at www.luciandgeorge.com.

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