这篇文章主要介绍了多日越野比赛的背景及一场举办在美国新泽西州的48小时世界锦标赛。由于多日越野比赛属于边缘运动的边缘，大多数人很少了解或参与其中。然而，该比赛的主办者通过创造“全球多日超马组织”和“世界冠军”的吸引力，吸引了47名参赛者，其中七人年过70岁，三人年过80岁。这些参赛者中的一些人已经有了40年的职业生涯，而另外一些人则有53年的比赛记录。虽然参赛者都在为自己的记录而奋斗，但他们都为自己的毅力和奋斗精神而感到自豪。
The livestreaming was down, the tracker wasn’t up, the star guest was a no-show and eight hours into the 48-hour race, there was no leaderboard. A steely pride burned behind Trishul Cherns’s reddened eyes as he began to write down times on a whiteboard.
直播停了，追踪器也没上线，明星嘉宾没来，而在48小时比赛进行了八个小时后，还没有排行榜。Trishul Cherns 眼睛泛红，坚定的骄傲在心中燃烧，他开始在白板上写下时间。
“We were a website,” he said, looking out on what he had created. “Now, we are an organization, and this is a championship.”
"我们曾经只是一个网站，"他望着自己创建的一切说道。"现在，我们是一个组织，这是一个锦标赛。"
From a parking lot in Hainesport, N.J., 20 miles east of Philadelphia, the event looked less like a race and more like a traveling carnival. Tents of all shapes and colors were huddled next to each other while odd characters moved around the one-mile loop as if on a conveyor belt.
从新泽西州 Hainesport 的一个停车场，距离费城东部20英里，这场比赛看起来更像是一个移动嘉年华，而不是一场赛跑。各种形状和颜色的帐篷挤在一起，而奇怪的人物则像在传送带上一样在这一英里的环形赛道上移动着。
There was the strongman power walking in a makeshift headdress. There was the tattooed man, covered with devils, whales and horses, beneath a Walt Whitman beard. A nurse, on call, power walked and sang, her multicolored umbrella hat sticking up like a cocktail garnish. Another participant walked, reading a book in one hand and sucking on a freezer pop in the other.
有一个身穿自制头饰的强壮男子在快步走，还有一个满身恶魔、鲸鱼和马纹身的男子，长着沃尔特·惠特曼式的胡须。一名护士在随时待命，一边快步走一边唱歌，她多彩的伞帽像鸡尾酒配料一样突起。另一个参赛者一边快步走，一边拿着一本书，另一只手吮着一个冰棒。
Multiday foot races are the fringe of an already fringe sport, and devotees such as Cherns often feel like the floppy disks of ultrarunning: outdated and rarely seen, but keepers of the origins of the sport.
多日徒步比赛是已经较为边缘的一项运动，像 Cherns 这样的狂热者常常觉得自己就像超长跑的软盘：过时而不常见，但是保存了这项运动的起源。
Six-day races and multiday challenges date as far back as the 18th century, and were reborn in the 1980s as an inclusive medium for self-challenge by leaders like Sri Chinmoy. When Fred Lebow and the New York Road Runners started a six-day race in 1983, it seemed multiday racing might explode into the mainstream. But the event was canceled two years later and has not returned.
六天的赛跑和多日的挑战可以追溯到18世纪，而在20世纪80年代，像 Sri Chinmoy 这样的领袖将其作为自我挑战的一种包容性的媒介而复兴。当 Fred Lebow 和纽约路跑者协会在1983年举办了一场六天赛跑时，多日赛跑似乎可能爆发到主流。但两年后，这个事件被取消了，至今未曾复兴。
A sport in which times were tracked in miles per hour not minutes per mile failed to resonate with the masses. The distances they ran made more sense in relation to truck drivers and migratory birds. So last September, many multiday events were decertified by their own governing body, the International Association of Ultrarunners. It was the final straw for Cherns. He had seen enough and created his own group: the Global Organization of Multiday Ultramarathoners. The key, he thought, was creating the allure of being crowned a “World Champion.”
曾以英里每小时而不是分钟每英里来追踪时间的一项运动未能引起群众共鸣。他们跑的距离与卡车司机和候鸟的关系更有意义。因此，去年九月，许多多日比赛被其所属的管理机构——国际超级马拉松协会取消了认证。这是Cherns的最后底线。他已经看够了，并创立了自己的组织：全球多日超级马拉松组织。他认为，关键是创造成为“世界冠军”的吸引力。
And so the 48-hour World Championship was born. The race, which started on Sept. 3, drew a meager 47 runners, seven of whom were in their 70s, three who were in their 80s and many who signed up not to claim victory but to move up “the list.”
于是，48小时世界锦标赛诞生了。这项比赛于9月3日开始，吸引了仅有47名选手，其中7名选手年龄在70多岁，3名选手年龄在80多岁，许多人报名参加并不是为了获胜，而是为了上榜。
The brainchild of Nick Marshall, the longevity list is in an encyclopedic Excel sheet and ranks ultrarunners’ careers by the time span from their first 50- or 100-mile race to their most recent. Some runners have 40-year careers and others, like Willi Furst of Switzerland and Werner Hohl of Germany, have more than 53 years of races documented.
这个长寿榜是Nick Marshall的主意，是一个百科全书式的Excel表格，按照超级马拉松选手从第一次50或100英里比赛到最近的时间跨度排名。一些跑步者已经有40年的职业生涯，而像瑞士的Willi Furst和德国的Werner Hohl这样的选手已经有超过53年的比赛记录。
With a generous 48-hour cutoff on a flat, paved course, the new championship attracted many who thought it gave them a chance to get another race on their records.
这项新锦标赛在平坦的铺装赛道上有宽松的48小时截止时间，吸引了许多人认为这给了他们机会在他们的记录中再增加一项比赛。
At 82, Ed Rousseau flew in from Minnesota and set up camp on a wooden bench. He rubbed his feet with salve, put on socks, then pulled up knee-high pantyhose. Built like a pair of scissors, he power walked in a hunched position with his head down, eyes ahead. His feet stretched out in front of him as if kicking a ball. “I feel like I’m dying,” he said with a wry turn of his lip. “But I’m afraid I won’t.”
82岁的Ed Rousseau从明尼苏达州飞来，在一张木制长椅上安营扎寨。他用药膏擦脚，穿上袜子，然后穿上高到膝盖的紧身长裤。他像一把剪刀一样，驼背走路，低着头，眼睛盯着前方。他的脚像踢球一样伸在前面。“我感觉像是在死亡中，”他嘴角苦笑着说。“但我担心我不会死。”
Jim Barnes drove up from Alabama and moved with a leisurely shuffle as he talked and laughed with anyone who would listen. When the midday sun broiled the field, the 84-year-old Barnes broke out a remarkably white button-up shirt dotted with holes. Barnes cut it up himself back in 1989. “Country air-conditioning,” he quipped with a wink.
吉姆·巴恩斯从阿拉巴马州开车过来，慢吞吞地走动着，与任何愿意听他说话和笑的人聊天。当中午的阳光烤着田野时，84岁的巴恩斯穿了一件洞洞衬衫，异常白净，是他自己在1989年剪破的。“乡村空调，”他挤眉弄眼地说道。
By four in the afternoon on day two, Cherns stood watch, arms akimbo. “This,” he said coolly, “is when the race really begins.” The course, however, was nearly empty of runners and base camp looked like a M.A.S.H. unit. Bodies were scattered anywhere there was shade. As very few runners are able to run for 48 hours without breaks or some semblance of a nap, multiday racing is as much about strategy and pit stops as speed and endurance.
第二天下午四点，切恩斯双手叉腰站岗。“这就是比赛真正开始的时候，”他冷静地说道。然而，赛道上几乎没有跑步者，基地营地看起来像个野战医疗站。人们到处都找遮荫的地方散落着。由于很少有跑步者能在不休息或睡眠的情况下跑48小时，因此多日长跑比赛与速度和耐力一样重要，也是关于策略和停车的问题。
The pre-race favorite, Viktoria Brown, a 47-year-old mother of three, kept pushing forward. Now wearing a ventilation mask for her asthma, she looked like Darth Vader and ran like a bulldozer. Her gait was heavy and determined, her head and shoulders in front of slightly duck feet. Somewhere on the next lap, her power vanished. At the aid station, she slipped the mask down from her reddened face and said, “this is the toughest fight of my life.” She looked like a person being smothered.
47岁、三个孩子的母亲维多利亚·布朗是赛前的热门人物，一直在不断前进。现在她戴着通风口罩治疗哮喘，看起来像达斯·维达一样，跑得像一台推土机。她的步态沉重而坚定，头和肩膀前倾，略微弯曲着鸭掌。在下一圈的某个地方，她的力量消失了。在援助站，她将口罩从红肿的脸上扯了下来，说：“这是我一生中最艰难的战斗。”她看起来像一个被压抑的人。
Nick Marshall, 74, right, said, “The heat was a gut punch the first day.”
74岁的尼克·马歇尔说：“第一天的高温让人筋疲力尽。”
A Greek special forces officer had led from day one. Dimosthenis Marifoglou, who goes by Dimos, ran the way you’d expect a navy seal to run. His gait was quick and aggressive, his posture erect as if sitting in a saddle. He looked invincible until the furnace of day two had him on his back listening to the faint trickle of a nearby creek.
一位希腊特种部队军官从第一天开始领先。迪莫斯特尼斯·马里福格洛，绰号迪莫斯，以海豹突击队员应有的方式奔跑。他的步伐快速而有进攻性，姿势挺直，就像坐在马鞍上一样。他看起来无敌，直到第二天的高温把他压在地上，听着附近小溪微弱的流水声。
“The heat was a gut punch the first day,” said Marshall, who at 74 was also in the race, “but the second day was a knockout.”
“第一天的炎热让人感到无力，”现年74岁的马歇尔也参加了比赛，“但第二天更是毫不留情。”
It was precisely at this time, when every stable-minded person was indoors, that the magic of multiday races revealed its distinctive peculiarity in the form of 71-year-old Tom Green. The leader — the soldier — was down for the count. Second place was pushing and bonking, looking like the walking dead. Yet here was Green at the 48-hour championship, pushing a jogging stroller while recovering from brain trauma in 90-degree heat, hoping to get another 100-mile race on the list.
就在此时，每个头脑清晰的人都呆在室内的时候，71岁的汤姆·格林以其独特的特点展现了多日长跑比赛的魔力。领先者——士兵——已经出局了。第二名正在挣扎着，看起来像个行尸走肉。然而，格林在90度高温下推着婴儿车参加48小时的锦标赛，希望再完成一次100英里的比赛。
It’s still not clear if the creation of the 48-hour race and the Global Organization of Multiday Ultramarathoners is the end of an era or the beginning of one. What little star power there is in the sport was noticeably absent. Yiannis Kouros, vice president of the organization and widely considered to be the greatest ultrarunner in history, couldn’t attend because of vaccination issues. Other Europeans, such as the Lithuanian phenom Aleksandr Sorokin, faced visa problems.
目前还不清楚48小时长跑比赛和全球多日超马组织的创立是一个时代的结束还是一个时代的开始。这项运动中的明星力量寥寥无几。被广泛认为是历史上最伟大的超长跑运动员的副主席Yiannis Kouros因接种疫苗问题未能参加。其他欧洲人，如立陶宛神童Aleksandr Sorokin，面临签证问题。
Long after the finish, as the tents were coming down and the music stopped, Marshall and Ed Dodd, second and third on the longevity 100-mile list, reflected on the future of multiday racing. “I used to run and walk. Now, I walk and lie down,” said Dodd, 76. He had hoped to put another 100 in the book, but “the leans” had taken their toll on him by mile 57.
即使比赛结束很久了，帐篷正在拆除，音乐也停了下来，马歇尔和艾德·多德，分别是长寿100英里名单上的第二名和第三名，也在思考着多日长跑的未来。“我曾经跑步和步行。现在，我走路和躺下，”76岁的多德说道。他本来希望再跑100英里，但“倾斜”已经让他在57英里处筋疲力尽了。
Marshall, who was an elite 100-mile runner in the 1980s, also found himself off kilter — his hips pointed forward while his bare upper torso leaned toward the infield. A common phenomenon in multiday races, many runners over the age of 60 will begin to lean to one side or the other as the miles pile up.
马歇尔是1980年代的一名精英100英里长跑选手，他发现自己有些不协调——他的臀部指向前方，而裸露的上半身则倾向于内场。这是多日比赛中常见的现象，许多60岁以上的选手在完成了大量里程后会开始向一侧倾斜。
Budjargal Byambaa, an established multiday runner, won the championship by running over 208 miles, edging out Brown by 13 miles. Although Jeff Hagen could be named a certain champion, too. The 75-year-old ran 166 miles in two days — the equivalent of six marathons and the best performance ever recorded for his age group in a 48-hour race.
Budjargal Byambaa是一名资深的多日长跑选手，以超过208英里的成绩赢得了冠军，比布朗多跑了13英里。尽管杰夫·哈根也可以被称为冠军。这位75岁的老人在两天内跑了166英里——相当于六次马拉松比赛，并创下了他这个年龄组在48小时赛事中的最佳表现。
For Cherns, the race was an unmitigated success. Next year, they plan to hold a 6-day championship in Policoro, Italy, and another 48-hour championship in Gloucester, England. “It has begun,” he said in front of his organization’s new logo, a dull blue over a field of white.
对于切恩斯来说，这场比赛是一个无可挑剔的成功。明年，他们计划在意大利的波利科罗举办一场为期6天的锦标赛，以及在英国的格洛斯特举办另一场为期48小时的锦标赛。“它已经开始了，”他在自己组织的新标志面前说道，这个标志是深蓝色的，在白色的背景下显得沉闷。
Marshall wasn’t so sure as he watched the award ceremony from afar. “It will never be mainstream,” he said softly. “It’s an odd sport. Everybody’s a finisher.”
当马歇尔从远处观看颁奖仪式时，他不太确定。“它永远不会成为主流，”他轻声说道，“这是一项奇怪的运动。每个人都是完成者。”
剩余段落暂不支持预览，下载文章即可阅读全文，有任何疑问请您联系客服【18011429143】微信同号。
