万花筒 Kaleidoscope2007-10-14&10-15, 酷热马拉松

Thousands of wanna-be marathoners never crossed the finish line in Chicago this weekend. But our reporter Dan Skinner did pass the finish line. He joins me live by phone from Chicago, to tell us about the conditions of the race.

--Dan, how are you doing today?

--Um, I am doing pretty good. My legs are a little sore but my wife Sharron * who ran up with me are in good shape overall³.

--All right. Dan, this is your first race that you did right? And did you do it with your wife, is that right?

--Yes, we did it together. We’ve run a few half marathons in the past year in Chicago and Cleveland and a few other places. But this is our first full marathon¹.

--Ok, as you are running along and then you get to a mile marker, was it 20, I think? When someone tells you, er, this marathon is over.

--Yes. It was actually marathon at mile 20, my friend Adam, I saw him there and he said- did you hear the news? And I said, no, what? And he said the marathon has been canceled. And my first thought was what do you mean it's been cancelled? What were running a marathon, that’s not cancelled? But we pressed on and about a quarter mile later, we heard the kinda first official announcement from, er, Chicago police that the race had been canceled. And at that point, they were encouraging everybody to walk rather than run. But nobody was officially pulling it off, the course at that point, so we figured as long as they were gonna let us stay on the course, we were gonna keep going at a slower pace and do our best to make it to the finish line.

--Dan, we are talking about hundreds of people who had to go to the hospital or who are at least had to get treated at the scene, plus one death. When you were running this marathon, did you notice that people were dropping out?

--Yes, that’s when we starting around about the16th mile, which was a stretch of the race. That was very, kind of not very shady⁴ at all, a lot of stun⁵ beating down. And that was really all for the first stretch that, er, um, we started to see a noticeable⁶ drop in the water and the supplies, I mean there were people on the ground being treated too, we saw one man who was being treated for what, appeared to be an ankle⁷ injury, and a medical personnel⁸ said, you know, we can’t get you an ambulance, we can't always get ambulances for emergencies which in most races, you know, a serious ankle injury would be an emergency but on a day like this, they had to, kind of, er, take the ambulances for really critical⁹ situations.

--Well Dan, it sounds like you are doing ok, and I’m glad you are but that is gonna be quite a story to tell for a while. The marathoner² sort of wasn’t.

--Exactly, it’s kinda bittersweet what’s, ah, you know, maybe not the race stage experience we had hoped for, but years from now when people ask you when did you run the Chicago marathon, we can say, we ran a really hard one. So, er, it's a, it’s a nice memory, and, we are thankful we finished, and, feeling pretty good about ourselves

--Dan, thank you so much for joining us.

--Thank you, Reggie.

1 marathon   

n.长距离赛跑；需要耐力的比赛；(M-)马拉松

参考例句：

• I'm hoping to be in the marathon next year.我希望明年能参加马拉松赛。
• The meeting was a bit of a marathon.这次会议有点马拉松赛的味道。

2 marathoner   

马拉松运动员

参考例句：

• He was a marathoner who could run miles and not be weary. 他还是一个马拉松运动员，能跑好多英里路而不疲倦。 来自互联网
• A marathoner, despite of breaking his leg in the race, managed to finish the game eventually. 一个马拉松选手，尽管比赛中腿折了，仍然最后完成了比赛。 来自互联网

3 overall   

n.工作服，工装裤；全面的，全体的

参考例句：

• The shop assistant was wearing a white overall.那店员穿着白色的工作服。
• How much will it cost overall?一共多少钱？

4 shady   

adj.成荫的，多荫的，可疑的，靠不住的

参考例句：

• This is a shady avenue.这是条林阴大道。
• He's a rather shady person.他是个相当靠不住的人。

5 stun   

vt.打昏，使昏迷，使震惊，使惊叹

参考例句：

• When they told me she had gone missing I was totally stunned.他们告诉我她不见了时，我当时完全惊呆了。
• Sam stood his ground and got a blow that stunned him.萨姆站在原地，被一下打昏了。

6 noticeable   

adj.显而易见的；值得注意的

参考例句：

• The effect of the medicine is not yet noticeable. 药的效果还不显。
• There's been a noticeable improvement in his handwriting.他的书法有了明显的进步。

7 ankle   

n.踝，踝节部

参考例句：

• She twisted her ankle when she fell.她摔倒时扭伤了脚踝。
• She turned her ankle while ice-skating.她滑冰时扭伤了脚踝。

8 personnel   

n.[总称]人员，员工，人事部门

参考例句：

• The personnel are not happy to change these rules.全体工作人员对改变这些规定很不高兴。
• Personnel has lost my tax forms.人事部门把我的税收表格给弄丢了。

9 critical   

adj.批评的，评论的；危急的，紧要的；临界的

参考例句：

• We are at a critical time in history.我们正处在历史的危急时刻。
• Now that the situation becomes critical,one must keep calm.事到临头，要沉住气。