He’s really cooking with gas.
A Long Island chef ran a grueling 350 miles from Lake George to Montauk Point in under a week — all to raise $20K for the Long Island Crisis Center and mental health awareness.
“I see it as a way of showing people you are able to go a lot further than you think,” Christopher LaMagna, 32 of West Islip, told The Post minutes after hitting the Montauk Point Lighthouse during the twilight hours of Wednesday evening.
LaManga, who teaches cooking classes at Babylon Mercantile near his home, maintained an grueling pace of 75 miles per day — just about triple the New York City Marathon’s length.
For the past three years, LaManga has run from Central Park to Montauk to raise funds for the crisis center; however, this time he simply wanted to “challenge myself a little bit more.”
The well-conditioned athlete left the upstate vacation town, which the chef holds special as a place spent time with family as a boy, at about 3:30 a.m. Saturday, as he trotted down Route 9 all the way into New York City.
“There were a lot of trucks…the fact that I went that long and I didn’t get hit by a car — it’s just amazing, I think.”
The father of two was accompanied by friends in an RV where slept each night from about 8:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.
“The first two days, I woke up before everyone else, and I was making everybody coffee,” said LaManga, who first picked up running during the lockdown days of the pandemic.
“I was like, come on, guys, let’s go!”
That was, until Monday’s incessant deluge of rain over the tri-state made the leg from north of Poughkeepsie to NYC sheer misery.
“When you wake up after you hit 150 miles, your brain starts telling you you should be tired,” LaMagna recalled. “Then the rain on top of it does not make it any better. But we pushed through.”
LaManga and his entourage successfully reached his parents’ home in Flushing, Queens by day’s end and were treated to a feast of hot dogs and hamburgers by the runner’s family.
Admittedly, LaManga didn’t abide by a normal marathoner’s diet on the trek.
He and the team stopped at several pizzerias in Queens, and popped somewhere upstate for breakfast with a craving for blueberry pancakes — even though they had to run back to the RV to get the fruit as the restaurant was out of stock.
The cherry on top came late Tuesday night on the South Shore of LI after LaManga reached a Wendy’s in Shirley that had just closed.
“One of my guys was banging on the fire door, ‘let us in! He just ran from all the way upstate!’” LaMagna recalled. “And they made me a couple of burgers.”
When he finally reached Montauk on a chilly Wednesday evening, LaMagna said, “I could have done another 150 [miles].”
Also elated with the thousands of dollars he raised for the cause, LaManga urged people to remember that they are not alone in life and help is available. He also encouraged the masses to follow through on their inspirations.
“It’s one thing to have a dream,” he said. “It’s another thing to take it out of your head and put it into this world. I think that’s a powerful message.”