He's run through bucolic mountainscapes and rolling Piedmont hills.

His sweating steps bring blisters to his feet and shave pounds from his already lanky runner's frame.

But even Scott Adams' endurance is no match for that of the people for whom he runs.

Since May 27 the 40-year-old Chapel Hillian has been running across the state in an effort to raise $25,000 for the American Cancer Society and its related Hospice Program.

The 18-day "Run North Carolina" fundraiser started in the mountain town of Murphy for Adams, who works as information technology director of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science.

Adams has averaged about 45 miles a day as he winds the 744 miles to Manteo on a mission inspired by those in his own life who have been touched by the disease.

Friday afternoon found Adams on home turf as his route took him through Carrboro and Chapel Hill. At about 2:30 p.m., he came into view, running east on Jones Ferry Road toward downtown Carrboro.

Friends and family met Adams outside the Open Eye Cafe in Carrboro. Clad in red running shorts, sweat streaming down his face, he rested at a picnic table outside the coffe shop while a small crowd held up signs of support and angled an umbrella over him to shade him from a scorching son. His son Tylor stood on the table holding a sign that read, "Go Dad Go!"

A long-time ultra-marathoner, Adam's loves what he's doing, and he has prepared for it with rigorous training.

But the running still takes it toll, even on an experienced athlete.

"I can't currently bend my right knee," Adams said Thursday night from Greensboro after he had ended that day's run.

He has enjoyed running ever sincer junioro high school. In time, it became a way he felt he could inspire people.

"He runs in the rain, the cold, the hot," said Adams' wife, Mindy, who is pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church.

She hasn't always been on track with her husband's running ideas.

When he first told her about wanting to do a run for the American Cancer Society in 2005 -- 200 miles along the Blue Ridge Parkway -- she tried, she says, "to knock some sense into him."

She worried about how his health would be affected by what she called "humanly impossible" feat.

Adams was determined, though, inspired by the loss of an acquaintance from bladder cancer. He completed that run and raised $8,000 for the society in the process.

"Cancer is just everywhere," Adams said.

Both his grandfathers suffered from cancer -- skin and lung -- and he's encountered the disease in stories he's heard during his run.

While running through the mountains, just outside the town of Andrews, a woman stopped her car and donated $3 to his cause. She was a hospice worker, she said, taking care of a cancer-affected woman just down the street.

The donation touched Adams, as has all the support he's received. Thus far he has raised about 70 percent of his target $25,000.

He'll be entering flatter land now, enabling him to average more miles a day.

After a rest of 20 minutes or so Friday afternoon, Adams stood up and took another swig of water. To cheers , he waved goodbye and, limping slightly, set off down South Greensboro Street.