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Excerpt from "Running across the Millenium"

by Lynn David Newton

I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry

At the end of the race I was wide awake, and got only a little drowsy on the car ride home. (Suzy drove.) I took a shower, got in bed shortly after noon, slept deeply until 4:15, then got up feeling refreshed and wide awake. We went out for dinner. I was up until 11:30 Saturday night, and slept less than seven hours that night. As far as my sleep patterns are concerned, it was as if nothing unusual ever happened. Having had the experience, I'll never dread sleep deprivation in a 24-hour race again. Getting over ten hours sleep the night before certainly had to help.

Twenty minutes after the conclusion of the race Paul conducted an awards ceremony on the track. As a high school history teacher, his presentation skills are excellent. I admire multi-talented people.

I called for my collapsible chair, which I plunked myself down on a few feet from where I had stopped running, tired and jubilant, but unwilling to move any further, and waited for the commencement exercises to begin.

For the first time in the history of the race, awards were available for all participants. The number was small enough that each runner was honored individually, with announcements of total mileage, appropriate background commentary, applause, handshakes, and hugs. Runners were introduced in order of increasing mileage, starting with the 24-hour race.

The hardware passed out is the nicest I've seen in any race. The male and female winners got trophies that are sculptures, and all other participants got a neat little trophette: a brass tripod four inches tall, with a stem and a round glass cylinder sitting on its edge in a brass cradle. The glass is 1.25 inches across the diameter, and 0.5 inches thick, and has a gold and silver image of the sun with a face on the front, and one with the moon on the back. It's by far the most attractive participant's hardware I've ever brought home from a race, and I'll treasure it always. The winners' trophies, progressively bigger for the 24-hour, 48-hour, and 6-day victors, are by the same artist, and have a similar theme.

At awards time I still didn't know my final mileage. The runner announced before me, Lynda Hendricks-Dana, had 323 laps, for 80.28 miles. This confirmed that I had made my goal. When my turn came, Paul mentioned the part that I'd had in promoting and volunteering for the race,[32] and the story of how I showed up last year and liked what I saw so much that I got involved to the point of writing this book about preparing for and running the race. I was unable to stand up out of my chair to go over and retrieve my own award, barely ten feet away. Cyra-Lea got it for me. Consequently, just as I was the only person not to go through the yellow tape, I was the only one who didn't stand up, shake hands, and get my picture taken getting a hug from Mima. I couldn't stand because of the blisters!

[32] Rather small!

However, Paul forgot to announce my mileage! It wasn't until I grabbed a printout of the final standings on the way out that I finally learned what it was.

Once again I had short-changed my lap counter. The final figure:

328 laps for a total of 81.52 miles!

Even as I write this now, four days later, I find it hard to believe. And already I'm thinking: I can do better! Wait until next year.

My placement was tenth out of 26 official competitive runners, the 38th percentile. However, the last four were apparently not serious competitors, having completed between one and 62 laps each. As posted on the ARR Web site,[33] where both the competitive and early starting non-competitive runners are merged without distinction, my place standing is twelfth out of 38, the 31st percentile. The next runner ahead of me was the blithe-spirited former Olympian Michael Allen. He finished only two laps more than me. He did it despite taking a nap in the middle.

[33] See the official results.

If I had been confident of my lap count and stopped at 323, I would have tied Lynda Hendricks-Dana. And if I had been aware of how close I was to Michael, I probably could have started hustling a half hour earlier and squeezed out three more laps to kick my placement up one notch.

As I explained to Cyra-Lea the day before: I would do the best I could. If some runner beat me by one lap, then all it means is that runner ran a little bit better than me. It doesn't matter to me, because I'm not a competitive person, and I will still feel satisfied in knowing that I did the best I could.

But in retrospect I now wish I'd hustled just a little more!

Excerpts from 'Running Through the  Millennium' by Lynn David Newton