by James Moreland

Dante Ciolfi was born in Vancouver, BC, Canada to parents who had emigrated there from Italy. That all happened forty-two years ago. Like many runners, Dante did not race in high school or college.

He was somewhat a loner. Focusing inward he learned independence and the rewards of solo effort. However, this solo effort would not take the form of running. It would not take form until the purple haze of high school and college partying passed.

He attended James Madison University in Virginia and although he graduated near the top of his class, he was reaching a breaking point. After college graduation in 1977, he decided to quit his partying lifestyle cold turkey. His body and mind could not handle that type of abuse forever. He decided he wanted to adopt an exercise program that he could do by himself that would give the maximum benefit with a minimum amount of equipment. He wanted an individual sport that could be done anywhere.

He enjoys the meditative, spiritual quality of long, slow distance runs. But now he also appreciates the social aspects of training in a group. He trains hard for the competition and he is grateful to fellow racers. Their presence spurs him on to his best performances. After a year of training he ran his first race, a 3:03 marathon. Dante ran one or two 10Ks (PR 34:02) and a couple of marathons (PR 2:35).

After that Dante was looking for longer worlds to conquer. He decided to run a 100-mile race, the Old Dominion 100-Mile Trail Run. That was one of his best running memories. At 90 miles, he was barely able to move in a forward direction. At that point a Marine who had a curiously uneven stride caught him. Dante would find out later that his stride was the result of a war wound. Every stride he took made him grimace in silent pain. As he approached, Dante managed to blurt, "Keep it up. Looking good." He replied, "No way. Hang with me. We'll finish together." They jogged across the finish line together.

In 1981, after graduating from dentistry school, he headed west to Tempe, AZ. Dante continued to live and train in various parts of the Southwest desert for the next fourteen years. He moved to Taos, NM in the winter of 1989, driving through the worst blizzard that part of the state had experienced in twenty years. For Dante, Taos turned out to be the best place in the United States in which to train for distance running.

It was here that he decided to train for the 3,000-mile TransAmerica Footrace. Taos might not be the best place in which to make rational decisions. The TransAmerica was a competition held annually from 1992-1995. They ran it in sixty-four daily stages, beginning in June in Los Angeles and ending in August in New York City. Its antecedent, the Bunion Derby, was run in the early 1900s. People somehow finished the Bunion Derby, despite the shoes from that era.

When Dante ran the TransAmerica in 1994, fourteen people began the race; five finished. The primary reason for the high attrition rate was the worst heat in the history of the modern race. Contained within the TransAmerica is the longest desert race in the world (California to the western slope of the Rockies). In 1994, peak daily ambient desert heat was around 120 degrees Fahrenheit for about three weeks straight. The asphalt temperature closer to 130 degrees.

The TransAmerica was a source of extreme joy and extreme disappointment. He prepared for this race (360 miles/week, all at 7,000-13,000 feet, over a period of six months). He planned to and fully expected to set a course record and win the race. Unfortunately, drinking bacteria-tainted water in a Salina, UT restaurant made him extremely sick, causing him to lose running form. This loss of form caused an anterior tibialis tendinitis, which plagued Dante for the remainder of the race.