Like grizzled combat veterans, the survivors of the first day's run clustered last week at the bar in an Alexandria, Minn., lodge. Belting down tumblers of Jim Beam and Pabst, they compared horror stories: a burnt-out piston, a broken ski, a torn suspension, a collision with a tree. Their bright thermal suits were splotched with oil, eyes were red from fatigue, and windburned faces were scratched from encounters with barbed wire and flying stones. Some hobbled, others seemed permanently hunched from their battle. The weary combatants had just completed the opening day of one of sport's most grueling events, the St....
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