Scorecard

THE AGONY OF VICTORY

One would assume that a track athlete would enjoy any race he won, and that success would make him want to run his event often. Not so, says Boston Marathon winner Jerome Drayton.

"I try to avoid the marathon like a bad disease," he told Jim Proudfoot of The Toronto Star, "but because it's my best event, I have to do a couple a year to confirm my training methods.

"To describe the agony of the marathon to somebody who's never run it is like trying to explain color to a person who was born blind.... Everything suffers, even your internal organs. You're in pain all through the last six miles and for days afterward. Every atom of you aches.... It's torture.

"That's why I don't go around looking for marathons to run in. Two a year is plenty for me."

SKEETER EATERS

To eliminate a problem that bugs its patrons every year, Scarborough Downs, a harness track near Portland, Maine, has released 5,000 baby dragonflies in conjunction with a newly opened race meeting. The great insect emancipation, everyone hopes, will rid the marshy grounds of mosquitoes.

"The people who sold us the dragon-flies said that each one is able to eat 3,000 mosquito larvae at one sitting," says Peggy Cronk, Scarborough's group-activity director. "Maybe now I can get rid of that can of Off I keep in the winner's circle."

The dragonfly tactic is the track's latest attempt to scratch an old problem. Last year a fog-spewing, antimosquito machine was pushed through the crowd after every other race. Before that the track tried special lights that attract, then "zap" the pests.

"People still complained," says Cronk. "One man swore he heard one mosquito say to another, 'Do you want to eat him here, or drag him off into the woods?' "