Dundee middle-schoolers go the distance

If you’re reading this over eggs and coffee Saturday morning, 345 bleary-eyed students at Dundee Middle School may still be out there, running around a track behind their school.

They started at 9 a.m. Friday and will not stop until 9 a.m. Saturday.

This unusual feat of endurance is called the Midnight Mile. A test of commitment, goal-setting and mental toughness, the Midnight Mile has become a tradition at Dundee Middle School, where it is in its ninth year.

Teams of 15 students from the sixth, seventh and eighth grades take turns running along the track behind Dundee Middle School in West Dundee.

When one team member finishes a mile (four laps around the track), he hands the baton to the next team member. After 15 miles, it’s his turn again. Students take turns keeping time. At night, they sleep in shifts. It’s the duty of each runner to wake up the next person on deck when he finishes his laps.

“The most challenging aspect is when it’s nighttime, someone wakes you up and says, ‘Run,’” said Dylan Rogers, a seventh-grader who is running in his second Midnight Mile. “It’s tough to get off your booty and do it. It takes a lot of willpower.”

The physical education teachers at Dundee Middle School started the event after hearing about a similar challenge at a Crystal Lake school.

Starting two months before the Midnight Mile, students begin a training regimen. Each week, they must turn in training logs to their gym teachers.

“It teaches them fitness awareness and the benefit of training,” said physical education teacher Erin Frank.

One of the striking things about the Midnight Mile is the diversity of the runners — green sixth-graders and experienced eighth-graders; serious runners as well as students wearing wigs, capes and a hot dog suit.

“We’ve seen some kids you wouldn’t consider a typical runner do fantastic,” Frank said. “It’s really awesome to see this appeal to those kids.”

The event started with about 180 students. This year, 345 were signed up.

Mark Pierski, a parent volunteer, has been there every year — even though all of his children are now in high school or college. One of his kids is returning to volunteer this year; the others still ask about it.

“If it leaves an impression on you, that’s a victory,” Pierski said. “Hopefully, they can use this later on.”

Some of the runners have already learned from the experience.

“The biggest lesson is you can do anything,” Dylan Rogers said. “You don’t have an excuse to quit. There are 100 other people doing the exact same thing.” At the end, “you feel really tired, but you feel like you did something really important.”