VOA标准英语2012--Harrowing Minnesota Race Tests Endurance

Harrowing Minnesota Race Tests Endurance

Last year, overnight temperatures plummeted¹ to minus 31 degress Celsius². The year before, minus 37. That year, cyclist Jason Buffington saw one of his friends - a fellow racer - who'd stopped.
"I came up on Charlie in the last 20 miles of the trail standing³ and waving his legs back and forth⁴ trying to get circulation back in his toes," Buffington says.
Charlie Farrow, 52, kept going, crossing the finish line about two hours later. Buffington, a doctor from Duluth, Minnesota, and 10 years younger than Farrow, was there to meet him, and quickly helped him remove his boots.
"His toes were swollen⁵ and purple like a plum," Buffington remembers. "He lost probably about half of the skin off his big toe about two or three months later."
"My toenail never came back," Farrow adds, "so I'm a man without a toenail."
Nevertheless, both men were still at the starting line for this year’s event. Farrow's bike was outfitted⁶ with snow tires as wide as his fist. After biking the past two years, Buffington raced on foot this time. He rigged up a sled to pull behind him, loaded with more than 11 kilos worth of survival gear every racer is required to carry for the extreme cold.
"You get what's called the kennel⁷ cough," Buffington says. "Where your lungs get frozen, your eyeballs, your corneas get a little frostbite, and everyone kind of walks around, and everything's real foggy, and you just have this dry coughing going the whole time."
Then there's the lack of sleep. The walkers and skiers take almost two days to complete the course, and may only sleep a couple of hours. The fastest bikers take nearly 20 hours, and don't rest at all.
This was Farrow’s seventh Arrowhead. He’s done all of them except the very first race. The high school social studies teacher says every time he does the race, his fatigued⁸ mind starts playing sinister⁹ tricks.
"I have a recurring¹⁰ hallucination regarding the Wizard of Oz. I always have this vision of the trees coming after me... and then I also have this vision of the Emerald City... but I can't ever get to it," he says.
Isolation¹¹ is also a factor. As the course meanders¹² from International Falls, on the Canadian border, through a national forest and around and over some of Minnesota’s 10,000 now-frozen lakes, the racers are spread out far apart.
"That's definitely the biggest danger," Buffington says. "Both years that I've biked it, even though it's taken less than 20 hours, there are times where for six-and-a-half hours, in the middle of the night, 20 below, you don't see a soul, and if anything happens, you're out there on your own."
That means racers have to be extremely prepared and careful. Three aid stations and nine shelters are spaced along the route.
Jeremy Kershaw, 40, a cardiac nurse, has completed the race for the past three years; first by ski, then bike, and last year on foot. With about 32 kilometers to go, he caught up to a racer struggling on the side of the trail.
"He was kind of frantically¹³ trying to get new clothes on and eat," Kershaw says. "It was a scary situation because I was really at the last several hours of the race, and so I was really at the end of my reserves."
Luckily, the racer had a cell phone, so Kershaw was able to get hold of a support crew which hauled the racer to safety by snowmobile.
Kershaw says it was a good reminder¹⁴ of how things can go wrong. "If you're not paying attention, things can go south very quickly, particularly when it's that cold and you're that tired."
Every year, about half the racers in the Arrowhead 135 drop out before reaching the finish line.
And that's partly what attracts athletes like Kershaw. "I'm more drawn¹⁵ to it by the fact that there's so much carnage, that people don't finish, that it's so tough."
There wasn’t as much carnage this year. The temperature at the start was a relatively¹⁶ balmy minus twelve degrees Celsius. And racers benefitted from the conditions. Minnesotan Casey Krueger smashed the ski record by 14 hours, finishing in just over 22 hours.
The first woman biker across the finish line - Eszter Horanyi from Colorado - took a bit over 18 hours to break the women’s record by two hours, just two-and-a-half hours behind the winning biker.
And Jason Buffington, the doctor from Duluth, set a new course record for runners. He finished in just over 37 hours.

1 plummeted   

v.垂直落下，骤然跌落( plummet的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Share prices plummeted to an all-time low. 股票价格暴跌到历史最低点。
• A plane plummeted to earth. 一架飞机一头栽向地面。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 Celsius   

adj.摄氏温度计的，摄氏的

参考例句：

• The temperature tonight will fall to seven degrees Celsius.今晚气温将下降到七摄氏度。
• The maximum temperature in July may be 36 degrees Celsius.七月份最高温度可能达到36摄氏度。

3 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

4 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

5 swollen   

adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀

参考例句：

• Her legs had got swollen from standing up all day.因为整天站着，她的双腿已经肿了。
• A mosquito had bitten her and her arm had swollen up.蚊子叮了她，她的手臂肿起来了。

6 outfitted   

v.装备，配置设备，供给服装( outfit的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• They outfitted for the long journey. 他们为远途旅行准备装束。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• They outfitted him with artificial legs. 他们为他安了假腿。 来自辞典例句

7 kennel   

n.狗舍，狗窝

参考例句：

• Sporting dogs should be kept out of doors in a kennel.猎狗应该养在户外的狗窝中。
• Rescued dogs are housed in a standard kennel block.获救的狗被装在一个标准的犬舍里。

8 fatigued   

adj. 疲乏的

参考例句：

• The exercises fatigued her. 操练使她感到很疲乏。
• The President smiled, with fatigued tolerance for a minor person's naivety. 总统笑了笑，疲惫地表现出对一个下级人员的天真想法的宽容。

9 sinister   

adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的

参考例句：

• There is something sinister at the back of that series of crimes.在这一系列罪行背后有险恶的阴谋。
• Their proposals are all worthless and designed out of sinister motives.他们的建议不仅一钱不值，而且包藏祸心。

10 recurring   

adj.往复的，再次发生的

参考例句：

• This kind of problem is recurring often. 这类问题经常发生。
• For our own country, it has been a time for recurring trial. 就我们国家而言，它经过了一个反复考验的时期。

11 isolation   

n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离

参考例句：

• The millionaire lived in complete isolation from the outside world.这位富翁过着与世隔绝的生活。
• He retired and lived in relative isolation.他退休后，生活比较孤寂。

12 meanders   

曲径( meander的名词复数 )； 迂回曲折的旅程

参考例句：

• The stream meanders slowly down to the sea. 这条小河弯弯曲曲缓慢地流向大海。
• A brook meanders through the meadow. 一条小溪从草地中蜿蜒流过。

13 frantically   

ad.发狂地, 发疯地

参考例句：

• He dashed frantically across the road. 他疯狂地跑过马路。
• She bid frantically for the old chair. 她发狂地喊出高价要买那把古老的椅子。

14 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。

15 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

16 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。