Globe-Trotting Fund-Raiser Winds Up Running on Empty : Charity: Man and support driver have been stranded in L.A. for seven months, unable to get a sponsor for remainder of trip.

The clock’s running. Ian Macdonald wishes he was doing the same.

The 39-year-old Englishman is stuck in Los Angeles after jogging two-thirds of the way around the world in a first-of-its-kind footrace to promote cancer research.

He has camped out next to the Hollywood Freeway for nearly seven months while trying without success to raise money for the final leg of his 23,000-mile odyssey.

Los Angeles is a nice place to visit, Macdonald says. But he doesn’t want to live here.

If sponsors aren’t found soon, Macdonald plans to strike out on his own and jog as far as his dwindling personal savings will take him. That could be Phoenix or thereabouts--far short of Andover, England, the marathon’s starting and planned ending point.

“It’s very frustrating,” the tanned, muscular runner said. “I did not anticipate having such difficulty finding sponsors in America.”

Corporate supporters in Europe, Japan, New Zealand and Australia have thus far helped finance the run, which began seven years ago and has covered 15,766 miles. Macdonald travels 26 miles a day, the traditional distance of a marathon--although injuries and support vehicle breakdowns have often slowed the pace.

In exchange for cash contributions or donations of food and gasoline, sponsors get their names painted on the side of the 21-foot vehicle and printed on colorful brochures that Macdonald distributes in each town he visits.

During such visits, Macdonald stops to meet with civic and church groups. He tells of coping with minus-21 degree temperatures in Yugoslavia, with Kurdish terrorists in eastern Turkey and with blistering heat as he set a world record jogging across Australia.

And he explains how his marathon was prompted by the deaths of his parents from cancer. Listeners are asked to make direct donations to cancer research organizations. So far, he said, about $300,000 has been raised and contributed directly to various research efforts around the world.

When Macdonald and support-van driver Janice Newell arrived in Los Angeles last Dec. 18, they expected to take only a month or so to line up new sponsors, paint the new names on the van and print the new brochures. About $100,000 in cash or donated materials is needed to pay expenses across the United States and parts of Africa and home to England.

Although it took months to recruit supporters in Japan, it had been a different story in Australia and New Zealand. “In Australia, we arrived one day and five days later we had all the sponsors we needed,” Macdonald said.

People in Los Angeles “seem more skeptical,” he said, speculating that uncertainty over the war earlier this year and the recession may also be to blame.

“I’ve made hundreds and hundreds of telephone calls and sent out 30 or 40 letters to companies here,” said Newell, 32, also of Great Britain. “But only one or two people have expressed any interest. And they want to see who the other sponsors are first.”

These days, the names of the New Zealand sponsors are still listed on the sides of the van. It was loaned by a Japanese company when the aging, British-made bus that was accompanying Macdonald failed to meet Japanese emission standards.

The van is parked on state-owned property near the Hollywood Freeway and Vermont Avenue.

Water and electricity are available at the fenced-in site and Caltrans is allowing the couple to camp in exchange for watching the vacant property. Sympathetic highway workers even invited the pair to their Christmas party last year.

Although rocks were thrown at him in Iran and his bus was broken into in Turkey, the stopover in Los Angeles has turned out to be more perilous.

Last week, assailants armed with baseball bats tried to rob Newell as she walked outside the Caltrans lot. When she screamed, Macdonald came running. So did nearby residents.

One of the neighbors grabbed a machete and took off after the robbers. “I chased after the car and was trying to dive at it when one of them pointed a gun at me,” Macdonald said. As the car sped off, gunmen fired at his machete-wielding neighbor, but missed.

“We want to get moving,” shrugged Newell.

“After coming this far, I don’t want to give up,” said Macdonald.