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Excerpts from 'Running Through the Millennium' by Lynn David Newton Chapter 10: Getting Close The ATY race site is Arizona Boys Ranch, in Queen Creek, Arizona. It's a 58-minute drive from my house, in light traffic. I arrived yesterday just before 1:30 PM, four and a half hours into the race. It was cool and windy when I arrived. I located race director Paul Bonnett-Castillo immediately, who quickly informed me that he had spent all morning resolving disaster after disaster. Despite it, things were progressing well. Eighteen runners showed up to run, including Paul, who at that time had walked around the track twice. By the time I left for the day he got around it once more, en route to fixing another problem. My job was to serve as a lap counter. In previous years they used paper charts, pencils, stopwatches and calculators. The old method was tedious, but worked well enough. With the move to computers, the task has been complicated somewhat. When I arrived, a table with an awning over it had been constructed by the track. Two ancient Macintosh SE computers were running, with operators performing identical functions. A third Mac with a missing Enter keycap stood by on another table. The computers are attached to printers. As each runner came by, the number would be called out, and the operators would enter them and press return. The record would be written immediately to the hard disk, and a line that shows the runner's name, bib number, lap, placement, accrued mileage and other statistics, was sent at the same time to the printer, so there would be an ongoing hard copy record of the race. Several runners are aiming for various records. This data needs to be correct. Both of the two main computers and printers were being run off a car battery. I never got the full story on why this was necessary. Volunteers were visibly worried by the evidence that the computers were drawing more power than the battery was putting out, and that an eventual power failure seemed inevitable. They were working on a plan to move the computer equipment sometime during the night, when fewer runners would be out. At 2:00 PM, following a brief training session, I took my place at one of the Macs and began entering and calling out runners' race numbers as they passed by. Less than an hour later the power failure came. I shouted to Paul, who was ten feet away. His son Charlie immediately started entering data on the standby computer, which was run off an ordinary power outlet, with the data records set to zero, but the clock in sync. The time to move the computers was right then. In moments everything got unplugged. We carried it over the fence and up to the top of the bleacher steps to the press box booth. Within fifteen minutes everything worked again. On a signal from the track, we started recording laps, and simultaneously Charlie stopped. Charlie printed a standings report, ran up to the booth, and between recording the continuous unbroken flow of completed laps as they happened, deftly added in the laps completed for each runner while he had been recording them. Once again things were copasetic. Crisis resolved. There are both advantages and disadvantages to sitting in the booth. It's warmer in there, being out of the wind. After a while they brought up a space heater. This helped a little, but not enough, because we needed to keep the windows wide open. But we had a good view of the runners on the track from there, with no interference from non-runners walking by, which was an occasional problem at track level. It was harder to read their numbers from there, but fortunately I have good distance vision. And before long, we learned runners' numbers by appearance. The only problem was when they changed clothes, which happened as it got colder. The primary disadvantage of the booth was the loss of intimacy with the runners, which I regretted. On the track the computer operators were talking directly with the runners, calling them by name and cheering them on. From the booth, it was necessary to have someone at track level to communicate with the computer operators. At first this was done entirely by shouting the numbers loudly so we could hear them upstairs. This system removed us by one step. All we did was punch in the numbers and check the data. It wasn't as much fun. In retrospect, however, it was a much better method. A half hour before we finished our shift, someone showed up with a set of walkie-talkies. One was left in front of us, running off of wall current, one was taken to the caller on the track, and two backups sat in rechargers. This was a vast improvement, and continued for the rest of the six days. Lap counting requires tenacity. There is utterly no margin for error. I remained glued to the computer keypad for six hours without even a potty break. My partner and I had to check each other's screens constantly to be sure the number of laps recorded for each runner was the same. On three occasions there were errors, one of which did not get spotted for over an hour. These had to be resolved by tracing back through the printed output looking for an explanation, and then one or the other corrected. All this has to happen while continuing to record laps, sometimes in bursts of four or five people traveling in a pack crossing within a few seconds. The scene at the race is as amazing as I had remembered from last year. The football field is covered with tents serving as support centers for runners and their crews. Some people seem to be unattended, but the majority have at least one helper there. The six Brazilians are grouped together. Some came with family members. Most seem to speak little or no English, so they have formed a little enclave of their own. Some human interest notes from Sunday's session follow. * When I left, Brazilian Antonio Edmilson de Freitas had accumulated a whopping 63.13 miles in eleven hours, to put him in the lead by seven miles. He was looking exceptionally strong, and was whooping and hollering like Speedy Gonzales as he started each lap, laughing, smiling and having a wonderful time. * Martina Hausmann from Germany is moving steadily, hoping to break the German women's record. * Californian Bill Dickey is injured, but is participating while walking slowly around the track with a cane. When I left he had accumulated over ten miles. The weather forecast calls for increasing high temperatures up to 74 degrees on Friday. Come what may, I'm going to have fun on December 31. Excerpts from 'Running Through the Millennium' by Lynn David Newton |