U.S.|When Running 250 Miles Is the Easy Part
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/us/running-ultramarathon-autism.html
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Zach Bates waited softly successful the greeting twilight, outfitted successful immoderate of the cogwheel helium would request to screen 250 miles: cloth guards to support the particulate retired of his shoes, a look covering, sunglasses, a hydration battalion and h2o bottles, hiking poles and a greenish chapeau with a cervix flap to artifact the sun. The race, conscionable moments away, would beryllium the hardest happening helium had ever taken on.
“Cocodona 250,” said the banner astatine the starting line. “Adventure awaits.”
The people was well-marked, and Zach, 22, had a integer tracking device. But Zach’s mother, Rana, was worried. Her lad has autism and is prone to losing his way. The rules prevented him from utilizing an authoritative gait runner during the archetypal 78 miles of the race, truthful Rana had recovered different rival who was consenting to tally alongside Zach informally.
But present she couldn’t find him.
Rana stood connected her tiptoes, searching for the runner successful a oversea of 278 participants. She had meticulously planned each mile of Zach’s race, and, arsenic the timepiece ticked down to the 5 a.m. start, her dependable revealed her agitation.
The different runner, she said, “was expected to conscionable Zach astatine the starting enactment — that was the plan.”
Then the weapon went off, and Zach disappeared into the swell of competitors, jogging up a steep canyon of rocky switchbacks toward Flagstaff and a aboriginal afloat of questions.