FAIRFIELD — On a dreary day, Hamilton Police Lt. Mike Martinsen ran 51 miles to brighten the outlook of a fellow law enforcement officer's family.

        Starting at midnight Tuesday, Lt. Martinsen, 36, ran from Dayton, Ohio, to Springdale — towing a 100-pound rickshaw most of the way — to raise funds and gain attention for the Julie Young Fund at Fifth Third Bank.

        Julie, 7, is a daughter of Butler County Sheriff's Deputy Jay Young and his wife, Carrie, of Oxford. The little girl has been diagnosed with two medical conditions that racked up thousands of dollars in expenses not covered by insurance.

        “I'm blown away, just overwhelmed by the generosity of somebody we don't really know who works for a different department,” Deputy Young said. “What do you tell a person who does something like this? "Thank you' is not enough.”

        Lt. Martinsen's soggy jog on Tuesday was a smaller-scale repeat of last year's 300-mile “Rickshaw Run.” That trek from Canada to Cincinnati raised $22,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and earned Lt. Martinsen a spot among the Cincinnati-area residents who carried the Olympic torch in December on its way to the Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

        Lt. Martinsen and his wife, Donna, of West Chester Township, sympathized with the Youngs because one of their four children, Megan, 8, has special needs. They said the “Journey for Julie” had raised about $4,000 cash, plus several thousand dollars in pledges and a computer donated by Springdale's CompUSA store. Lt. Martinsen ended his run there at around 1 p.m., after his 13-hour run, much of it in the rain.

        The computer will help Julie's family conduct more Internet research on her condition, and she also can use it to play games, since her conditions re quire her to avoid cold weather, her father said.

        Doctors say Julie has Raynaud's Phenomenon and scleroderma. The conditions, which affect connective tissues and blood circulation, can cripple and disfigure sufferers; scleroderma can be fatal.

        Julie isn't on medication, but she must undergo tests costing $8,000 apiece, her father said.

        Last month, an auction sponsored by Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 101, which represents sheriff's employees, raised $11,305 for medical expenses.

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