The Masochists' Marathon

The Murky High Sierra dawn was lightening to pigeon gray as the army of runners pressed intently toward the top of the first climb. Like most of the others, Doug Latimer was silent, listening to footfalls and labored breathing as he measured his strides on the steep dirt road. This year it would be different, he assured himself. When the grade steepened, he fell to a brisk walk; less cautious runners streamed past on either side. Latimer clenched his teeth, fighting the compulsion to move faster. He was determined to restrain himself this time, a strategy born of the pain and futility he had endured in this race the previous two years. When the course abandoned the road and the pitch became steeper yet, he began pausing every two or three strides to rest his legs. At 8000 feet, oxygen has a hard time making its way to muscles, a deficiency that takes a cumulative toll. Only a fool will push it those first five miles, with another 95 beckoning.

How could the race have gone so wrong the year before? Latimer had turned it over in his mind a thousand times. When you pour that much of yourself into something, you can't afford to fail. "I've never worked as hard for anything or had this kind of obsession," he admitted the day before that 1980 ordeal. "And that's a little scary, because if it doesn't go well. . . . I think I can deal with it, but I'm not sure."

Latimer had left himself open to an emotional plummet. But if you don't take chances. . . . What was it he said? His worst psychological defeat? Yes, that was it exactly. The worst psychological defeat or trauma that I've had in my entire life.

The more he thought about that race, the more it depressed him, because as the truth became clear, he felt stupid. He had violated his own precepts, running too hard too early, not drinking enough along the way. So utterly ravaged were his lean, freckled legs as he lay on the front seat of his brother's pickup--out there on Highway 49 near No Hands Bridge--that his friend Jim Santy had to hold them outstretched by the ankles so Latimer's quadriceps wouldn't clench. And every time Santy accidentally moved them a hairbreadth, Latimer would go absolutely nuts, writhing and screaming. At the motel that night, it took Santy an hour and 20 minutes to hand-feed Latimer a steak in bed. Jesus. How could such severe bodily harm be self-inflicted?

"Until you've run 100 miles in this kind of country," Latimer said, "you can't comprehend what it does to you." Of course, most of us, even iff we are functioning just barely inside sanity's out-of-bounds markers, are never going to run 100 miles in that kind of country. Or any other kind of country, for that matter.

The object of the Western States Endurance Run, a.k.a. the Western States 100, is to run westward across the Sierra Nevada mountains from 1960 winter Olympics site Squaw Valley, California--near Lake Tahoe--to the foothill province of Auburn, California, once a prosperous mining town, now a three-off-ramp community of 8000 perched alongside Interstate 80 between San Francisco and Reno. One hundred miles, predominantly on historical Indian and mining trails and logging roads in the Tahoe and El Dorado National Forests--much of it so remote that it is accessible only by foot, horse or helicopter--with elevations varying from a timberless 8750 feet atop Emigrant Pass, near the start, to 570 feet at an antiquated train trestle called No Hands Bridge, near the finish. Temperatures vary from as low as the 30s in the high country to more than 100 in the lower canyon bellies. It is a route that, when graphed, looks like a seismograph's representation of heavy aftershocks. There are 17,040 feet of altitude gain, 21,970 feet of altitude loss. In a bad year, there might be 20 or 30 miles of snow in the upper reaches. Even under the best conditions, the footing is treacherous in some tortuous stretches where boulders, roots, ruts and loose rocks abound. The bears and the rattlesnakes are the least of it.

The first four and a half miles constitute a grueling climb of 2550 feet, beginning at an elevation of well over a mile. There are two rugged canyons between the 49th and the 60th miles, back to back. At mile 79, there is a river to ford. Most runners don't reach it until well after nightfall, when they have been grinding along for 18, 20, 22 hours.

A lot can go wrong out there. When the human body is so severely traumatized, hundreds of biological complications occur. Significant maladies aggrieving runners each year include heat exhaustion, hypothermia, hypoglycemia, dehydration and acute fatigue, any one or combination of which can cause disorientation or hallucination. As a precaution, entrants are permitted to have "pacers" accompany them the final 40 miles. Each runner is required to wear a plastic hospital wristband bearing his or her name, blood pressure, resting pulse, weight and allergies, an adornment that gives the field the appearance of a roving horde of escaped inpatients. As Dr. Gilbert Lang of the race's medical staff says casually, "The most serious risk you take is death." The ultimate finish line.

Some run just to see if they can make it. Most run to see if they can make it in a single day and take home the coveted silver belt buckle etched with the figure of Hermes, the Greek messenger of the gods. And a few run to win. Latimer, a 43-year-old publisher, husband and father, runs to win.

"When he talks about the race," says his 38-year-old brother, John, who cherishes his annual role as Doug's support-crew chief, "it's The Race in capital letters with flames coming out the back."

Doug had convinced himself that winning wasn't his top priority for the 1981 race, but he hadn't convinced anyone else. "I'm not going up there to win," he would say nonchalantly. "I just want to enjoy myself and finish the race within 24 hours."

"I laugh in his face when he says things like that," scoffs John. "He's never approached anything halfheartedly in his life. He always goes out to win."

After Latimer's wrenching loss in 1979, when Mike Catlin overtook him at mile 94, though he had led for more than 11 hours, and after the devastating defeat the next year, when Catlin--Catlin again!--waltzed past a crippled and prostrate Latimer at mile 82, though he had led for 30 miles . . . after those bitter, festering defeats, Latimer couldn't dredge up winning as an avowal again. Not this time. The emotional ante was too high.

Latimer is a lean man, just under six feet, with a clean-shaven, freckled face and neatly trimmed ruddy hair. His leanness is accentuated by his erect posture, his countenance rescued from terminal boyishness by metal-framed glasses and an astute, gracious bearing derived from the cosmopolitan upbringing that comes of being the son of a Foreign Service diplomat. From Deerfield Academy to Princeton to the publishing world. By the time he was 30, he was a vice-president of Harper & Row and the youngest-ever member of the company's board of directors. Now he lives on the San Francisco peninsula with his wife, Karen, and their three young children and publishes a national magazine--Women's Sports--and two provincial entertainment guides.

The main thing, though, is the race. Latimer awoke the morning after his traumatic loss in 1979 obsessed with winning in 1980. Not a day passed that he didn't dwell on it. A White House Inauguration could not be planned more meticulously than Latimer planned for that race. He carefully logged his workouts and monitored his fluctuating weight loss under varying weather conditions, calculating how much he needed to drink at a given temperature over a given distance. He timed how long it took to urinate (30 seconds to a minute) and then perfected the art of taking a leak while moving.

The time commitment was phenomenal. Latimer averaged 145 miles of running per week during peak training. On four occasions, he made the eight-hour round-trip drive from his home to the Western States trail for workouts. He logged 14 training runs of 40 miles or more, including a 67-miler lasting nine and a half hours and a 74-miler that took 11 hours.

"I could put up with the time," said Karen, "but his mind was somewhere else. He was constantly preoccupied with the race."

When the big day arrived, Latimer went out with his spring wound too tight and ran himself into the ground. He wasn't about to make himself vulnerable to a letdown like that again. Not this time. Yet the thought of winning kept lurking in the recesses of his (continued on page 202) Masochists' Marathon (continued from page 162) mind the way the thought of escaping lurks in the mind of a lifer.

•

Running easily, almost gliding, feral instincts aroused. Latimer descended the sylvan trail into El Dorado Canyon. Mile 55 and leading, just like the past two years. Suddenly, he grasped the reality. He was leading and they--Catlin. Jim Howard and Buffalo Bill McDermott--were chasing. Predators and prey. My God, he thought, it's all going to happen again. Two paroxysmal sobs escaped, tears welling, a visage of self-pity.

Howard, on a roll of victories, including the tough American River 50-miler in April, was about a minute behind, running second. Howard is a 27-year-old part-time physical-education instructor at Sacramento State, a diffident young man who is quietly into born-againism. His Lincolnesque face, with red beard, pale-blue eyes and aquiline nose, is often the first to appear at finish lines, though this race has confounded him for three straight years. At 5'9" and 138 pounds. Howard is probably the most talented runner on the course.

McDermott, 30, was holding third, a minute behind Howard. He had achieved that position after starting dead last in the 251-runner field due to an ill-timed, hasty retreat to a bathroom at Squaw Valley Lodge, a contretemps magnified when he slipped off an embankment and landed on his ass before he could take his first step across the starting line.

Catlin, 29, was filth, ten minutes behind McDermott and 12 minutes off Latimer's pace. Although he had been victorious the past two years, it was never Catlin's style to lead at this point.

Latimer recovered quickly from his emotional purge as he plunged into El Dorado Canyon. No one runs the downhills like Latimer, graceful as a deer, his stride smooth and ethereal. He had caught all three of them--Howard, Catlin and McDermott--in the previous canyon. When he came upon Howard, he found him planted in the middle of the trail, taking a leak. Howard politely moved aside when he saw him approach.

To Latimer's amazement. Catlin was just around the next switchback. "Hi, Mike," he called as he closed the gap. "How's it goin'?"

Catlin wasn't interested in divulging his problems--nausea, diarrhea, kidney complications--so he contrived a dissembled response. "I don't know," he said. "I'm just running along. I can't figure out what to do."

Passing, Latimer said wryly, "I've gotta run these downhills fast or I won't destroy my quads before the end of the race. And it wouldn't be a typical Western States if I didn't do that."

At the next switchback. Latimer passed Jim Pellon, a 30-year-old structural engineer from Mission Hills. California, who was as surprised as anyone that he had led earlier and, even now, was running near the front. A few minutes later, as Latimer started climbing the verdurous canyon's far side at mile 50, he spotted the leader, McDermott. He caught him quickly.

"How's it goin', Bill?"

"Gee," McDermott said softly, "this canyon always gets me. It's just so hot clown here! The sweat's just drippin' off me!"

"Yeah, well, it's runnin' off me, too," Latimer consoled.

McDermott had no sooner been passed by Latimer than Howard passed him, too. Let 'em go, McDermott told himself. I'd be a fool to chase two guys known for going out too fast and blowing up. As McDermott contemplated that wisdom, he was at almost the exact spot where Howard had collapsed in 1978, after leading the race at a feckless pace. After resting in a stupor for some three hours, Howard had managed to tough out the final 40 miles and finish sixth, but in both 1979 and 1980, he had run himself into nauseated debilitation and had dropped out. This time, he was determined to do things differently.

Earlier. Latimer and Howard had been running together on Red Star Ridge, with its pristine, forested watershed. Nearly 20 miles into the race and well behind the leaders, both runners were using every form of discipline they knew to throttle themselves, kindred spirits hoping to atone for their previous transgressions on a course that demands deference.

"Jim, do you think we're hanging too far back?" Latimer had asked apprehensively. "Maybe we'll never even come close to the leaders--they're getting so far ahead."

"No, we're doing just the right thing." Howard said confidently. "This is perfect strategy. We're gonna be fresh--they're gonna tire. We'll let them run themselves out."

The pair ran in silence for a minute or two. Then it was Howard who had doubts. "Doug?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think we're hanging too far back? Think we're lettin' 'em get away from us?"

"No, Jim, this is perfect strategy." Latimer replied. "They're burning themselves up. We'll catch 'em at the end."

Two and a half hours later, after crossing densely timbered and shadowed Duncan Canyon and arriving at the meadowy 32-mile check point called Robinson Flat, they learned they were only five minutes behind the front runners. Howard grinned broadly and slapped Latimer on the back. "We're in it, man!"

Now, having overtaken McDermott, Latimer and Howard were running one two. The field of ectomorphic marvels was strung out for miles. It was obvious that the soaring temperatures forecast had materialized. As three o'clock neared and the race approached the ten-hour mark, the canyons were absolute kilns, baking at over 102 degrees in the shade, stagnant. It would get hotter yet for another two hours. Runners were stalled at various of the first nine of the course's 20 check points, getting treated by their support crews or by the race's volunteer medical stall for blisters, bruises, sprains, cramps, abrasions, fractures and heat afflictions.

In general, though, this field was the best prepared ever. Fully 161 entrants had run the race before, most in 1980. Only 19 would withdraw before reaching the halfway mark; 146 would finish, 82 within 24 hours.

Conventional curiosity leads expeditiously to the question of why anyone would submit to this flagellation in the first place. To most outsiders, the rationale is utterly elusive. The runners themselves find the rewards ineffable.

"I just enjoy it immensely. It's strictly self-satisfaction," says one.

Larry King, husband of Billie Jean and three-time participant in the Western States race, echoes the feelings of many of the runners in his assessment of the experience: "It is the most memorable thing I've ever done for myself."

Even those who haven't run the race but have witnessed it are seemingly awed. Dr. Lang, who has seen two Olympiads and numerous world-record performances, including Jim Ryun's first mile record and Bob Beamon's 29-foot long jump, says the Western States Endurance Run is "the most amazing and inspirational" athletic event he has ever seen.

The 1981 runners, ranging in age from 21 to 65, hailed from 28 states, plus the Netherlands, New Zealand, Israel, Canada and Peru. They convened at Squaw Valley's Olympic House on a Friday in June, the day before the race, for the traditional orientation.

"If you die out there or get lost," warned run president Curt Sproul with mock solemnity. "I don't care what your excuse is--you don't get a belt buckle." This elicited a big laugh, so Sproul played it for more. "If you don't finish, it'll help our financial statement." Another big laugh. Sproul then turned serious and apologetically explained that someone had surreptitiously removed some of the yellow ribbons of surveyor's tape that serve as trail markers.

The specter of getting lost hangs thick at this event. Invariably, some runners become disoriented, especially in the wee hours of the morning--the second morning--when they're stumbling along in the dark, powers of rationality diminished by fatigue, orienteering with a prayer and a dimming flashlight and a pacer who doesn't know where the hell he is, either. Complicating matters is the ubiquity of misleading yellow ribbons belonging to surveyors and loggers in the area. "You've got to look for the new yellow ribbons," advised one wily race veteran.

In 1980, McDermott was in third place and running strongly at about the 85-mile mark when he missed a yellow ribbon indicating a turn and ended up rooting around the scrub oak and manzanita at nightfall for an hour or two without ever finding his way again. Eventually, he flushed onto a paved highway and hitched a ride to the finish.

Hoary and wizened Wendell T. Robie, the 87-year-old race patriarch, invariably has a few carefully considered words for the entrants at the orientation. He decided to allay apprehensions. "We've never lost anyone out there more than one or two days," he bellowed sepulchrally.

Robie is one of Auburn's most enduring landmarks--a wealthy banker, landowner and patrician. A Placer County kingpin. Twenty-seven years ago, he got it in his head to ride a horse 100 miles, from Squaw Valley to Auburn, within a day's time--this at the age of 60--to prove to friends that central California horses were still as durable as when they were bred for the pony express. His feat inspired the Tevis Cup ride, an annual endurance test for horses and riders that follows virtually the same 100-mile route Robie traveled in 1955. The Western States Endurance Run is a Tevis Cup spin-off.

It was in 1974 that Gordy Ainsleigh, then 27, distinguished himself by participating in the Tevis Cup ride without the full complement of accouterments normally associated with the event. He had, for instance, no horse. Ainsleigh is a 6'3", 205-pound blond, bearded karate brown belt, whose physical presence commands attention. It is his manner, though, an alluring affability, that ingratiates him. He inspires confidence. Once, during a 50-mile endurance horse ride, he convinced a flagging, sodium-depleted female rider that her salvation lay in the licking of salty sweat from her horse's hindquarters. Clearly, any man who can persuade a woman to lick a horse's ass is unique.

People go through life yearning to make a difference, to start something, end something, leave some mark or at least score a perfect 20 on a Reader's Digest word-power quiz. Ainsleigh had no such aims when he ran the Tevis. The adventure was purely a lark. Yet, in finishing the course in 23 hours and 42 minutes--a performance superior to those of many of the horses--he unwittingly propagated the annual frenzy that has burgeoned into the ne plus ultra of endurance trail races in America.

Invention being the mother of emulation. 27-year-old California rancher Ron Kelley ran with the Tevis horses the following year. He made it to within four miles of the finish before running out of reasons for continuing. The event might have died then and there but for an affable, if bizarre, construction worker known and, in fact, once listed in the Tahoe City, California, telephone directory as "Cowman." Cowman. 37, is a large, full-bearded, perennially disheveled individual with a proclivity for emitting strange howling sounds without warning. He also enjoys competing in endurance events wearing his patented furred, cowhorned helmet. In 1976, he ran in the Tevis and completed it in slightly more than 24 hours. The race committee decided to sanction the run as an event in its own right: in 1978, it began to conduct the ride and the run separately.

And now it's got a hit on its hands, with aspirants greatly exceeding the number of runners--250 or so--the committee feels the trail can reasonably accommodate. A lottery entry procedure has been implemented to enforce the quota and to prevent the race from becoming a tree-leveling stampede.

Already there are imitators, 100-mile trail races having bloomed in Virginia. Utah and Nevada. Three similar events have emerged in run-crazed California. But the Western States 100 Hermes belt buckle is the pre-eminent cachet for the swelling ranks of fitness addicts perpetually in search of a crucible. If you want to test your endurance, it is said, compete in Hawaii's Ironman World Triathlon. If you want to go beyond endurance and have a glimpse at your soul, try the Western States 100.

•

Michigan Bluff, elevation 3500 feet, is a jerkwater town, a gold-rush remnant perched above El Dorado Canyon. It features a narrow, tree-lined asphalt road that shimmers in the June heat. Each year, on the occasion of the Western States race (this year, the race starts June 26), the hamlet swells from maybe a dozen families to several hundred cooler-toting, solicitous support-crew people, numerous race officials and a radio-communications contingent from the search-and-rescue component of the Placer County sheriff's department. Automobiles line both sides of the street for half a mile. This is a favorite check point for runners' crews, owing to its accessibility and to runners' need for them here after negotiating two deadly canyons.

Latimer was the first to arrive, floating in at 2:50 P.M. with that fluid stride of his that is so admired, lifted by applause and encouragement from awed spectators. The 145-pound runner was an image of incongruity. It was inconceivable that he could appear so strong, seemingly unfazed, after 60 miles--almost ten hours--in Sierra back country. When Ainsleigh made his precursory run in 1974, one of the Tevis Cup horses never saw this check point. It died in El Dorado Canyon.

Thirty-six competitors will not see this check point today. Another 18 will manage to get here but will go no farther, several receiving intravenous fluids from the medical staffers. Six more will stop for the mandatory medical check, rest, head out again, think better of it, return and quit.

Latimer stopped to allow doctors to check his pulse, weight and blood pressure, a routine administered at the start, at the finish and six times along the way. If you don't pass the physical, you're pulled from the race.

The leader hastened up the road, where his handlers provided--as per his detailed written instructions rendered several days before the race--a Bodabelt (a plastic canteen worn about the waist) filled with E.R.G. (electrolyte replacement with glucose). Latimer surrendered an empty Bodabelt in exchange. His crew also gave him--per instructions--a fresh sockful of ice, which he placed atop his head, beneath his Moosehead Beer cap. The temperature on the bluff was in the 90s, at least 30 degrees above optimal running weather but cooler than in the canyons.

Latimer's crew padded along with him for 75 yards as he left the check point, having stopped for only three minutes. Howard, who had checked in two minutes behind Latimer, was already on his way out, too, 50 yards back.

"I don't think I'm gonna win," Latimer said evenly. One of his handlers reminded him that he wasn't out to win, anyway. Just an enjoyable run, Doug. Another belt buckle.

"Howard is gonna get away." Latimer insisted. "He's looking awfully good."

"Still a lot to go. Doug," said Santy. Latimer's close friend and business associate. "Remember what happened last year."

"Yeah. I'm just trying to take it real slow." Latimer said reassuringly. "I'm not even thinking about racing."

McDermott, clad in a truncated Buffalo bill T-shirt, white nylon shorts, running shoes, a white rain hat and dark sunglasses, rolled into Michigan Bluff ten minutes after Latimer and Howard had departed. Complaining about the heat and his waning blood sugar, he drank a Coke, treated a blister, changed shoes, grabbed a banana for the road and was gone within nine minutes. Catlin had recovered from his earlier afflictions and was in and out in three minutes. 30 minutes off the pace and fifth behind Pellon. Pellon was happy with his day so far and figured anything thereafter was icing.

•

White Oak Flat, elevation 2000 feet, is a dusty, sparsely oaked foothill locale in the middle of nowhere that serves as the 75-mile check point. Latimer arrived two minutes behind Howard, who had taken the lead and was setting a remarkable pace. Howard in a ridiculous-looking visor with white toweling hanging down the back of his neck. McDermott had looked at him earlier in the race and said. "Where's your camel. Jim?"

After his medical check, Latimer conferred briefly with his brother. About to leave, he searched for Howard. "Where's Jim?"

"Oh, gee." John said. "He already left--about a minute ago. He's out of sight."

As Latimer left the check point on a winding dirt road that leads into the river canyon, he was nagged by the fear that Howard had thought better of their agreement. Howard was the one who had suggested it, seven miles back in the hamlet of Foresthill, after erasing Latimer's negligible lead. "How would you feel about running in together?" Actually. Howard and Catlin, who are roommates, had discussed the notion of tying one night during an all-purpose bull session. Obviously, allowed Howard, they would both be in the hunt near the end, so how would Catlin feel about running in together, sharing the victory?

Catlin just about shit: "No way will I run 100 miles to tie! Hell, I'd rather take second than tie! I'd sprint the last 100 yards to beat you if I had to!"

Latimer's reaction was the opposite. When Howard made the proposal as they ran through Foresthill, he agreed unhesitatingly. "There's nothing I'd like better. It'd be terrific if you really want to."

Such an accedence was uncharacteristic for a man of Latimer's competitive bent. But this circumstance was unique. Latimer and Howard had been within shouting distance all day. Indeed, they had run much of the race in tandem. And for three years, they had tacitly commiserated over their mutual misfortunes in the Western States race, misfortunes that had probed the contest's furthest outposts of physical and mental evisceration. So Latimer understood the spirit in which Howard, who is doggedly competitive himself, had made the offer, and he accepted in the same spirit.

At the time, Latimer had felt that Howard was the stronger runner, though he was sure he could hold his pace to Auburn. The leaders agreed that they couldn't afford to let up, not with McDermott and Catlin just a couple of miles back. So when Latimer stopped at the edge of Foresthill to collect a fresh Bodabelt from his brother, Howard kept going. "I'll just keep this pace," he said, "and we'll see how it's going at White Oak." But Howard hadn't waited at White Oak, and now, as Latimer arrived at the bouldered bank of the middle fork of the American River, it was obvious he hadn't waited here, either. There would be no catching him now.

After fording the river, Latimer was joined by his pacer. Ed Wehan, who had been a top finisher in the 1979 race and was intimately aware of Latimer's abilities. Latimer expressed pessimism about his chances. "Hey," enthused Wehan, "you're only a minute or two behind. At this pace. Howard can't be going much faster. Let's just see what happens." And they pressed on, unaware that Howard had been leaving messages at check points indicating that he still wanted to tie.

What neither Howard nor Latimer knew, had any way of knowing, was that Catlin had made it only a mile out of White Oak before turning back and withdrawing at the check point with knee problems. McDermott was way off the pace--an hour back--and Pellon was even farther back.

On a sandy riverbank somewhere around the 89th mile and into the 15th hour. Latimer and Wehan noticed footprints. Howard's and his pacer's foot-prints. The strides were uncharacteristically short. Howard must be slowing. All competitors walk the steep hills in this race, but this was Hat. It appeared that Howard was walking or barely running where he should have been moving much faster.

This was exactly where Catlin had used the same technique to deduce that Latimer was fading in the 1979 race. The irony wasn't lost on Latimer. He quickened his pace.

On an uphill stretch that leads to the 92-mile check point. Latimer came around a bend, and suddenly, there was Howard just ahead, moving slowly with his pacer. Latimer shouted. The pacer turned and frowned. Latimer caught up easily and asked Howard how he was feeling.

"I'm having a hard time." Howard admitted weakly. "I'm really dehydrated."

Latimer moved past. "Do you still want to tie?" he asked earnestly.

"I'd still like to if you want to." Howard said, forcing the words from a mouth that was so dry, his tongue cleaved to it.

•

Highway 49 check point. Ninety-two miles and daylight on the wane. When the runners arrived, striding abreast, their crews set upon them immediately. John approached his brother. "Go for it. Doug! He's dying! He's dying!" Howard was getting much the same from a crew that was certain its 27-year-old stallion could put away a 43-year-old man in these last eight miles. Howard gulped Coca-Cola to slake his thirst and get sugar into his enervated body. Both runners shook off the admonitions with laconic replies. "We're going to run in together." And off they went, side by side, through a golden field, pacers in tow.

Catlin was among the bystanders. Someone asked if he were going to head over to No Hands Bridge, the 96.5-mile check point. Catlin replied tightly. "Why rush over to the bridge to see two guys who are gonna tie?"

•

John Latimer, who had suffered with his brother in the emotional flotsam of the 1979 and 1980 losses, was still disappointed about the tie months later. "It may have hit me harder because I didn't have a voice in the decision." he explained. Which is not to say his eyes weren't misty, along with everyone else's, when he saw the two runners emerge from the dusk and enter the illuminated Placer High School track stadium at 9:02 P.M. Some 150 spectators in the infield and the bleachers applauded and cheered as the pair rounded the final turn, hands clasped and upraised as they marked the last 40 yards of their ordeal.

The time, 16:02:37, was a new record, breaking Catlin's old mark of 16:11:56, which was set before race officials took a careful measurement of the route and then lengthened it 4.8 miles to make it precisely 100 miles. Latimer and Howard stopped for no more than a total of 15 minutes during the entire race and ran the final eight miles at a pace faster than they had run the previous 92.

Howard, looking moribund, eyes glassy, was asked by a race official if he wanted something to eat. "No," he whispered, "but I would like to go home." Fifteen minutes later, he was slumped in a patio chair on the track infield, dry heaving. His crew surrounded him and fended off press photographers, then led him to a cot and covered him with jackets.

Latimer, meanwhile, was wrapped Indian style in a blanket, blithely talking with friends and reporters and showing little evidence of the physical toll. When he spotted Howard on the cot, he jested. "Jim, if I'd known you were going to be sick, I would have pushed harder." Two hours later, Latimer's blood pressure plummeted and he, too, was on a cot. He later calculated that he had consumed 46 pounds of fluids during the race, while his body weight dropped two pounds--a 48-pound liquid displacement. Latimer is certain his patented moving urinations saved crucial minutes and enabled him to share in the victory. What he is uncertain of is whether or not he could have beaten Howard if they had raced to the stadium. Neither athlete has any regrets, but both will always wonder.

For 14 hours, runners straggled home. An infield cot was occupied by a pacer McDermott had run to exhaustion. McDermott finished strongly in third, an hour and 37 minutes behind the winners. Bill Weigle, a 1972 Olympic race walker, picked his way through the ranks--mainly running--for 18 hours and 16 minutes to place fourth, 37 minutes behind McDermott. After having his blood pressure recorded, he tried to rise from a chair but collapsed and lost consciousness, an inane grin on his face as he went down. Pellon placed fifth, his weight down from 141 to 127.

•

The day had come and gone, as had the night, and the next day was heating up as the last finishers under the 30-hour cutoff struggled in and made no pretense of their emotions. Cowman, who had rolled in with Ainsleigh shortly before four A.M., watched contentedly, looking more disheveled than ever for having run 100 miles. Belore the race, he had announced his intention to turn around in Auburn and run the 100 miles back to Squaw Valley.

"Hey. Cowman! How come you didn't do the second 100?" inquired an admirer.

Cowman offered a lazy smile. "Aw, just wasn't up for it, I guess."

"Savin' it for another day, huh?"

"Yeah," Cowman said, his smile broadening behind his bushy beard. "A hotter day."