3,000 miles: 73-year-old Chapel Hill dad runs for autism research

Nick Nickerson's son, Adam, lives with autism, but it hasn't kept him from earning a paycheck at Extraordinary Ventures, where he provides services like dog walking.

In honor of Adam, Nickerson is running 3,000 miles to raise money to better understand autism. At first, his goal was to run coast-to-coast, but he said his age has prevented him from going that far.

Instead, Nickerson runs the 3,000 miles in chunks, participating in 5K and 10K races. He runs many of them with Adam -- recently, the two participated in the Autism Society of NC Raleigh 5K on Oct. 12.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 1 in 59 children are now diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Early intervention provides the best opportunity to support healthy development.

"What autism does is it prevents the person from becoming the best 'you,' the best person that you could be," Nickerson said. "If we don't research autism, it's just going to become the disability of the century."

"I've only got 90 miles to go, so I'm looking at a month, or a little over a month, and I'll be done with this," he said.

Nickerson runs each race holding a sign that promotes his campaign, 3,000 Miles for Autism. The sign keeps track of his progress.