Twenty-thousand Feet at 2,820 Meters

(Deep radio male voice, close mic position) TWENTY-THOUSAND FEET!

(Excess studio reverb) 10,000 RUNNERS!

THOUSANDS OF CHEERING FANS!

(Race noises up, then under) And a 15 kilometer race on cobblestone and on pavement, with the FINISH in the Atahualpa soccer stadium!!!

That’s the way it was likely promoted – the annual Ultimas Noticias run. The way it began was much more low key.

We and other runners rode in silence on the trolley. At the end of the line we walked in small groups, most of them talking among themselves.

We stretched and waited for the starting gun. Then after the race officially began . . . we waited even more. Ten-thousand people don´t cross the start line all at once.

The stories are important to me. A day earlier, I talked with Luisa and Gustavo while in line to get our singlets and shoelace time chips for the race. A year earlier, Gustavo had come up from Riobamba to run the race, so Luisa took him way down south for the race start.

“Well, we´ll see how I get home,” Gustavo casually mentioned. “I´ll go with you for awhile,” Luisa replied.

A ways down the 15k route, she decided to go further with him, then on a bit further.

And on and on . . . until they jogged right into the stadium in the north part of town. That was 2008.

Saturday June 6, 2009 they were picking up their race supplies for the Sunday race.

Gustavo is 83 years old.