Thank You For Being A Friend
I remember slogging around the North Coast 24, on it’s .9-mile track. It was the race that I wanted to hit my first 75 miler. I would have to go around that track 84 times. Yeah…monotonous. After running for about 12 hours, evening was descending. A runner approached me, “Do you have anyone to spend the night with?” In any other context, this would be absolutely inappropriate, but on this course, it was just his way of looking for someone to talk to while we went around, and around, and around. He needed a friend. He was a very nice man, but was obviously struggling with the race. He had suffered a stroke that left him with major holes in his memory and with speech deficits. We spent hours talking about his recovery and obstacles that he has had to overcome. His finish line was at 50 miles, and he thanked me for the company and said, “If you ever want to run the HAT race, you let me know. I’m one of the race directors. We fill up quickly, but you’ve always go