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Excerpts from 'Running Through the Millennium' by Lynn David Newton Chapter 10: Getting Close ShoutThe countdown to the last few seconds came. Go! Everyone let out a great cheer, including 6-day and 48-hour runners who were approaching the line. Because 9:00 AM was an odd-numbered hour, it was also time for the other racers to change direction. In less than two seconds I was across the line. My long journey had at last begun! On a certified 400-meter track, four laps is 5249.34 feet, just 30.66 feet short of a mile. For practical counting purposes, it's four laps to a mile. My strategy was simple. I would walk the entire first mile, and then would follow a routine of running one mile and walking one lap for as long as I could. It took self-discipline to resist running the first four laps! By 9:14 AM, first Stephanie and then James had lapped me twice. By 9:30 AM, the sun broke through the clouds briefly, and the rain, which had never turned into anything heavier than a light drizzle at the beginning, stopped. It didn't take long to decide to shed the Wilson pants. I called
for crew help to pull them off me, then ran until mid-evening with
only shorts on my legs. Soon after the start Dean showed up. It was not at all certain whether he would make it at all. He had work to care for, and was supposed to go to Mexico with our cousin for the weekend, but hadn't heard from them in two weeks. I was glad to have another family member present for a while. I had not been running more than a lap or two when Boston Bill (Perkins) arrived to run with me for a while. He joined me on the next lap. Bill had already run the ten-mile route at the weekly Saturday morning Mummy Mountain Arizona Road Racers club training run. Bill is a good-humored fellow. He's also loud. (In the nice sense!) As we ran lap after lap, he regaled me and everyone within fifty yards with a continuous stream of running wisecracks. Bill provided a valuable service to me. He hung with me until I reached forty laps, nearly ten miles. The pace we ran proved to be exactly right for me. My one and only concern was to avoid pushing too hard. No matter what I did to conserve energy, it was inevitable that by the end I would be completely exhausted. My objective was to find a pace that moved me along steadily, and that I could sustain for a long time. The pace I ran with Bill was just a hair quicker than I might have settled on if I had been starting solo, but this was a good thing, because it gave me confidence. When Bill left, a lap or two after we completed my fortieth, it was 11:00 AM. I felt invincible. This was to be my day. A few minutes later, I encountered a walker on the track wearing a Dead Runners Society T-shirt, someone I had never seen before. ``Yo! Dead Runner?'' ``Yes.'' ``Who are you?'' It was local ultrarunner Bob Davidson, who no longer subscribes to DRS, but is part of the CrAZeD spinoff list for Arizona Dead Runners. Bob is one of the first runners I contacted after joining the lists. Until 1998 Bob had a running streak of nearly fifteen years without missing a day. Presently Bob is running little. He was at the race to provide company for his brother Tom, who was in the 24-hour race. Bob became the last person to sign up for the race, as his brother talked him into taking a number at around noon. Bob didn't run, but continued walking for another fourteen miles, in addition to the five he had already walked, before packing it in and heading home. It was good to see him make that effort. Bob was at one time one of the mainstays of ultrarunning in Arizona. We certainly hope that he will return to running regularly again soon.
Excerpts from 'Running Through the Millennium' by Lynn David Newton |