At midnight one August night, with Montreal largely asleep, three longtime friends began a 125-kilometre run around the island to raise money for the pet therapy program at the Montreal Children’s Hospital.
But when Lorenzo Accurso, Matteo Iasenza and Dylan Beauchamp made their way back to the starting point in the Old Port some 20 hours later, on Aug. 22, they weren’t alone. Hundreds of Montrealers had joined. Some ran alongside them, others donated time, food and money, and many more cheered them on from the sidelines.
Along with their interest in extreme physical challenges, the three friends also share a connection to McGill. Iasenza earned his Bachelor of Engineering from the University in 2025. Beauchamp earned his Bachelor of Arts in spring 2026 and is now a first-year law student at McGill. Accurso, who previously studied kinesiology at Concordia, is a first-year medical student at McGill.
Their friendship predates their university years. Accurso, Iasenza and Beauchamp met at Selwyn House School in Westmount and have remained close ever since. It was that friendship that ultimately led to Miles for Minds, which raises money for mental-health related causes.
In this, its second year, Miles for Minds raised $150,000 for the Children’s, enough to fund the pet therapy program for an entire year. Combined with the more than $120,000 raised in its inaugural year for the Department of Psychiatry at St. Mary’s Hospital, the initiative has raised nearly $300,000 in two years.
The initiative began with another endurance challenge.
In 2025, on a whim, the three friends decided to enter a full-distance Ironman in Lake Placid, N.Y., despite having no background as triathletes. The training was demanding, but it showed them the value of having each other along for the ride.
“We realized we were able to get through the Ironman because we had each other’s backs and supported one another throughout the entire thing,” said Accurso. “That idea became the motto for Miles for Minds: Hard things feel possible together.”
From an Ironman to 125 kilometres
After completing the Ironman, the friends wondered what else they could do with the energy, discipline and audience they had built around their training.
Accurso had been filming their workouts and sharing the videos on his private Instagram account. The videos unexpectedly attracted attention, giving the friends an idea: take on another difficult physical challenge, document the journey and use the attention to raise money for a cause.
They decided to run around Montreal, roughly the distance of three marathons.
But they wanted other people to participate regardless of their running experience. They came up with a format in which participants could join for as short or as long a distance as they wanted. Waypoints gave runners designated places to meet the group, while a branded RV travelled ahead to make the route easy to find.
“But a lot of people either don’t want to run or can’t run. Our challenge was to get them to participate in other ways,” Accurso said. “We had tents along the way, music and free food from local businesses.”
That approach worked. Hundreds of people joined throughout the first run, and this year the crowds grew considerably.
Over 10 runners completed the equivalent of a marathon or a double marathon, and many more set their own personal records for distances run.
A personal connection to the Children’s
Mental health has been the cause from the beginning. The friends wanted to support something that resonated with all three of them and connected them to the wider community.
For Accurso, this year’s beneficiary was particularly personal.
At 13, he was admitted to the Montreal Children’s Hospital with chronic complex abdominal pain and spent months in hospital. During that time, he participated in the hospital’s pet therapy program.
The therapy dogs did not change his diagnosis, he said. But they changed how he experienced being in the hospital.
For a few minutes, he could focus on something other than pain.
“When I was petting the dog, all of a sudden my hand was no longer on my stomach,” Accurso said. “Maybe it was only for 10 or 15 minutes, but believe me, it mattered.”
Accurso says the impact of pet therapy is connected to mental health: even when it cannot change what is happening physically, it can offer comfort, distraction and relief.
Supporting one another
For the three friends, the hardest part of the 125-kilometre run was at night, when the crowds thinned, the runners were tired and the finish seemed far away.
“But the minute the sun started rising – at 5:30 or 6 a.m. – more people joined in. They were smiling and encouraging each other,” said Accurso. “I looked around and I said to myself, ‘We made it.’”
In some ways, Miles for Minds has grown bigger than its founders. And while the friends don’t yet know what comes next, they do know what they’ve built: a community where people help make hard things feel possible together.