Running, driving and sleeping for 196 miles

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A team of 12 Long Island runners, including six from East Meadow, escaped the cold for a weekend and participated in a relay race that spanned 196 miles, beginning in Miami and ending in Key West.

The Ragnar Relay Series, which hosts races all over the country, was held in Florida on Feb. 6 and 7. The team, which goes by the name The Silver Linings Crew, run as a group every weekend, and decided to take their athleticism down south for a unique race that spanned a day and a half.

The runners, plus three drivers, were split into two vans. Each completed three separate legs of the course, 36 in all, of varying distances between two and 12 miles. After dropping a runner off from the van to a race checkpoint, the rest of the team would drive ahead to the next exchange point to meet the finishing runner and send off the next one.

They began at 6 a.m. on Feb. 6, and finished at 4:05 p.m. on Feb. 7, a time of just over 34 hours, battling all types of meteorological elements, including excessive humidity, rain and darkness in unfamiliar terrain.

The team set up its own fundraising page online to benefit the National Meningitis Association. The cause is personal for them: in 2005, at the age of 39, team member Michael LaForgia, of Smithtown, contracted bacterial meningitis, and required emergency surgery. Doctors amputated his right leg below the knee, and most of his left foot. But he never stopped running. Since the surgery, he has completed multiple triathlons and marathons with the use of prosthetic “blades.” The group raised $2,000.

Ben Diamond, the team's captain, said the runners long knew of the Ragnar Relay, but used to joke about participating in it. Two years ago, Diamond decided to call them on their bluff and sign up. He was put on a wait list and eventually accepted. “I wrote the team, ‘OK guys, I have a spot. Are we really going to do this?” said Diamond, an East Meadow resident. “Nobody hesitated. Everybody wrote back and said we’re in.”

Running was the easy part for the team, whose members regularly compete in marathons locally and out of state. But the course itself presented “a battle of logistics,” explained Diamond, as they constantly had to map out their route to meet each runner, while also finding time to eat and rest.

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