Kente Mixon was operating on the 3 1/2 hours of sleep he managed to get on a gymnasium floor. His thighs were burning from running seven miles, probably the most in his career as a sprinter and long jumper. He still had one mile to go.
He put on a happy face anyway. How was he feeling?
“Pretty good,” Mixon said.
“You can be honest,” Luther North track and field coach David Grim said with a laugh.
“I’m tired,” a smiling Mixon finally let on. “I’m not going to lie — I didn’t like the idea of running this much. But it was a good thing to do.”
Mixon and his Luther North track and field teammates collectively ran 886 laps around the school’s track in 24 hours Wednesday and Thursday to raise more than $8,000 for the private high school on Chicago’s Northwest side. The event, which started and ended with a group lap at 4 p.m., is part of a month-long, $1.8 million fundraising push to keep Luther North open next school year.
Grim hopes that next week, after all of the pledges per lap are collected, the track-a-thon and a coordinating 20-hour throw-a-thon by the baseball and softball teams will have raised closer to $15,000.
“It sounded fun at first, but then when we got into it and 3 a.m. hit and we’re like, ‘This is crazy!'” junior middle distance runner Samantha Blase said. “The hardest part was going to sleep and then two hours later having someone wake you up, because you just want to sleep.”
After a full day of school Wednesday, about 30 track and field athletes divided into three groups, which took one-hour shifts of running and passing on a “Save Luther North” baton. The groups averaged close to 37 laps an hour. Each student ran between seven and eight miles, some in the middle of the night on a track lit only by the neighboring streets’ lights.
Between shifts, the students slept on air mattresses and sleeping bags in the school’s gym and ate food from a snack table that included donated pizzas. Dozens of Luther North alumni and neighbors kept the group company Wednesday evening, but the numbers dwindled to just the runners, coaches and a blaring portable stereo by late Thursday afternoon.
“You get slap happy,” sophomore sprinter and jumper Kayla Bushey said. “You should see people running around when they first get out there. They all look mad because they just got woken up and it’s 3 in the morning. They’re like, ‘Don’t talk to me.'”
Bushey and her fellow sophomores had to take academic progress testing at 8 a.m. Thursday after a night at school. She took the two-hour test and returned to the track for her shift. Blase had to take yearbook photos Thursday morning, but primped at school so she didn’t miss her shift.
They’ll all be back at school Friday afternoon for practice to prepare for the school’s 20-team track invitational Saturday.
The students knew the exhaustion would be worth it if they don’t have to use the letters of recommendation and entrance essays they’ve already begun to compile for new schools.
“We’ll pretty much do whatever to help save the school,” junior high jumper Sean Flosi said.
Luther North track-a-thon
What:
Members of the Luther North track teams ran for 24 consecutive hours.
Why:
To help raise $1.8 million needed to save the school.
Goal:
800 laps. Completed 886 laps.
Raised:
At least $8,000, but pledges are still being collected.
How to help:
Luthernorth.core-13.org
