Gagz had been running for 17 hours and 20 minutes when he made it to the southeast corner of the loop. He’d already chugged past this spot 370 times, but on his 371st lap, he started walking across the lanes. “I’m takin’ five,” he told me. “I have to. I just don’t want my lead to dwindle.” He reached the edge and laid down, propping his tattooed legs up against a waist-high chain-link fence, long gray beard falling toward the damp red track. He planned to sleep for exactly five minutes.
It was midnight for civilians, but at Dawn to Dusk to Dawn—a grueling 24-hour ultramarathon in Sharon Hills, Pennsylvania—hour 17 meant more to the runners. Gagz, 47, wasn’t the only one who’d started to creak. Harvey, the race leader who had already run more than four back-to-back marathons that day (107.87 miles), needed to change his fluorescent-yellow shoes. As he sat for the first time in the race, his two crew members facilitated the camping-chair pit stop: Anti-chafe salve was handed off, new socks were stuffed in the cupholders, fresh shoes were lined up. Micah, 40, had been leading the women and was second overall. Her team in the tent next door had been tracking that while she had run 23 of her 414 laps in more than three minutes, eight of her 17 laps this hour took longer. Jeff, 75, had been the definition of consistency all day, alternating between running and walking in pursuit of multiple American records for his age group. Five minutes before Gagz laid down, Jeff had stumbled to the field inside the track and started vomiting.
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