As a student at Connecticut College studying human rights several years ago, Laurel Dudley, now a fellow at the East-West Center at the University of Hawai'i, visited West Africa. In Mali, Senegal and Gambia, she witnessed the issue of safe drinking water firsthand.

"In all, I spent six months in West Africa, and really, that experience left me with a desire to want to really help these people who are living in such difficult conditions," said Dudley, 26.

So when a friend told her about the Blue Planet Run — an around-the-world race to raise awareness about clean drinking water — Dudley was inspired to apply. She made the cut in a field of about 300 people.

"It was a way for me to try to give back to places like West Africa, places that are suffering, that are experiencing difficulties in water sanitation, that are experiencing water issues," she said.

The lack of safe drinking water affects about one in six people worldwide, and water-related illnesses are the leading cause of sickness and death globally, according to the Blue Planet Run Foundation.

Next month, 20 runners from 13 different countries, including Dudley, will start the nonstop relay race, traveling 15,200 miles in less than 100 days. The runners will be divided into five teams, with each running an average of 10 miles a day.

As a triathlete, Dudley says she feels relatively prepared for the June 1 race start. The Vermont native began running 10 years ago, bikes everywhere, and recently finished first in her age group in the Lavaman triathlon on the Big Island. Dudley is a member of UH-Manoa's triathlon team and also leads bike tours with ecotour company Bike Hawaii.

"I live a very active lifestyle. My favorite sport is triathlon, and given that and my day-to-day life with Bike Hawaii, it definitely puts me in good shape," she said.

Still, on May 25, Dudley and her teammates will enter the Blue Planet boot camp at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, N.Y.

In the meantime, she plans to save up her energy and also concentrate on running, considering she'll be running 10 miles a day during the race (with every fifth day off).

"There's only so much you can do to prepare," Dudley said. "Running will be my focus. I won't be biking as much as I normally do. ... I'm not doing 10 miles back-to-back yet, but I already have a good endurance base, so I'm confident I can get there."

Dudley says she was always interested in visiting and studying in places outside of New England, but her semester in West Africa galvanized her to act.

"Many homes didn't have running water. In the city, people would walk to go to the tap to fill up buckets and bring it back to the house. If you're in a village, if you're lucky, there will be a well and you'd be able to draw up water that way. In other places, it's not even that easy. People walk up to 10 kilometers (6.3 miles) to get their water," Dudley said.

And even with all of that burden to access water, there was no guarantee that it was safe, she said.

"Water is such a basic necessity that none of us can go without," Dudley said, "yet more than a billion people don't have access to clean water and proper water sanitation."

Reach Loren Moreno at lmoreno@honoluluadvertiser.com.