Photo Provided The Rev. Gregory Plow, TOR, finishes in 10th place at the 50K (31 miles) Adrenaline run in Arizona earlier this year. His finish time was 61 minutes faster than when he ran the course in 2017.

STEUBENVILLE — Before each run, the Revs. Gregory Plow and Zachary Burns, both TOR, pray for the benefactors of Franciscan University of Steubenville. And, they’ll be praying in a special way on Saturday as they compete in the Burning River 50-mile Endurance Run and Relay to raise money for the university’s Spirit of St. Francis Scholarship.

“The Spirit of St. Francis Scholarship is for our neediest students,” said Plow, who is the director of Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Priestly Discernment Program.

“Because of the extreme financial limitations these students have, most of the scholarship’s recipients would not be able to afford a community college, let alone a private, Catholic university,” he adds.

Since its inception in 2013, the Spirit of St. Francis Scholarship has allowed students facing adversity, including broken families and poverty, to attend and thrive at Franciscan University. Plow has witnessed firsthand the many fruits of this scholarship, including students who have gone on to give back to their own communities through teaching in Catholic schools and working as social workers.

He likens their experiences with his own when, as a child, he and his sister received scholarships to attend their parochial elementary school — a gift made possible by the generosity of his pastor.

“I may not be a priest today if it were not for scholarships such as these,” said Plow, who will be running in his sixth ultramarathon to raise money for the Spirit of St. Francis Scholarship.

While Plow has run in the Burning River 50-miler before, this will be the first year he is joined by another friar. Burns, who just completed his apostolic year at Franciscan, says he first became interested in endurance racing after watching the documentary “Where Dreams Go to Die,” which focuses on the now-infamous Barkley Marathon in the backwoods of Tennessee.

For Burns, who served as the chaplain on Franciscan’s NCAA cross country team last season, endurance racing is the perfect metaphor for the religious life.

“We spend hours in prayer, we fast, and we seek silence in a noisy world,” Burns said. “In that sense, running an ultramarathon is a natural continuation of the Christian life.

“It’s an incredible opportunity to suffer both physically and mentally,” he added, saying “running represents one of the most basic opportunities for man to master himself.”

In addition to Plow and Burns, Franciscan will be represented at the race by a team of Franciscan University alumni who previously competed on the university’s cross country team. They will run various legs of the 100-mile relay race through the same Cuyahoga River Valley as the 50-miler. And while all the runners are aware of the challenges presented by the grueling course, they’re motivated by the students that will benefit from the gift of a Franciscan University education.

“Our benefactors are not just making a difference in one individual’s life, but in the lives of all the people that he or she will go on to positively impact,” Plow said.

Donations in support of Plow and Burns’ ultramarathon run can be made to www.FriarsRun.com.