A man is running the distance of one marathon per day across Canada to raise awareness about better head protection after he survived a brain injury in a car crash nine years ago.

Troy Adams was just 16 years old when a crash threw him from a car, injuring his back and head.

"There was bleeding into three parts of my brain, front, left, right ... basically I was a mangled mess," said Adams, now 25, on Thursday, as he ran through Ottawa.

He was back running within six months but he said his head was not the same. He also had problems concentrating and remembering things, he said, and his injury cost him work.

Harry Zarins, the executive director of the the Brain Injury Association of Canada, calls brain injuries "the silent epidemic" and said thousands of Canadians incur a traumatic brain injury each year.

If serious physical injuries don't show many shrug off the cognitive damage, Zarins added.

"I could have a brain injury, you could have one, but you can't see it. Instead people see a behaviour quirk or say we can't remember numbers," said Zarins.

Adams is now running to draw attention to the dangers of brain injuries and create a better network for brain injury survivors to connect with each other.

He began his run in St. John's, N.L., on April 1 and expects to run at least 40 kilometres a day for nine months until he arrives in Victoria, B.C.