24 Heures du Mans - 12:01:00
They've been racing since this morning and yet there is as much ahead as there is behind. This is the grandest type of madness, men and machines pushed to their breaking point and, in many cases, beyond. The 24 Hours of Le Mans is run at incredible velocities, but it is not at its heart a test of speed, it is a test of endurance. And once endurance is mentioned, it cannot help but call to mind the family motto of Sir Ernest Shackleton, "By endurance we conquer." How apropos to the Circuit de la Sarthe.

Also, this midpoint of the race occurs in the middle of the night on site. 'Tis three o'clock in the morning in France, the dead of night. They begin in the bright sunshine of Saturday afternoon, then plunge into the depths of darkness overnight, emerge into the dawn of Sunday, and finish in the mid-afternoon sunshine. This is so much like a drill we did back on the G.B.H.S. Boys' Swimming & Diving Team, "the descent into darkness." We saw 100s, one hundred yards at a go. 100 after 100 after 100, each on a set interval. And as we pounded away at the yards, Coach Day turned out the overhead lights, set by set. Eventually, all the ceiling lights were dimmed and we swam in an eerie twilight, the entire space aglow, lit aquamarine by the pool lights. I think we hit "bottom" about two-thirds of the way through, and after that the overheads were turned back on in sequence. A test of endurance, replete with a plunge into darkness, from the swim team that furnished so many of the most formative experiences of my life; given the similarities, how could I help but love the 24 Hours of Le Mans?