You Might Have Run Across Her on Halloween

Water or some type of health drink is usually preferred by runners after a tough workout or race. But an Indonesian marathoner has a unique thirst quencher: She sucks her trainer’s blood.

“The first time she bit my finger was in 1991,” trainer Alwi Mugiyanto said of Ruwiyati, a gold medalist in the recent Southeast Asian Games in Jakarta.

Mugiyanto said she does it after every race now.

At Indonesia’s national games in 1993, Ruwiyati, who goes by one name, bit the neck of her coach before a race. It took a week for Mugiyanto’s wound to heal, but Ruwiyati won the marathon and 10-kilometer run.

“I don’t know why, but as soon as I reach the finish line, I suck my coach’s blood from his finger and I feel refreshed,” the official Antara news agency quoted Ruwiyati as saying.

Dracula would be pleased.

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Trivia time: What is the oldest individual Pacific 10 Conference football record?

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Gambling man: General Manager Ron Wolf of the Green Bay Packers, on the risk-taking of New York Jet Coach Bill Parcells, such as going for first down on fourth down or faking a punt:

“He’s got guts the size of the Empire State building.”

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Miserable month: Washington State has a 7-0 record for the first time since 1930, when it finished the regular season at 9-0.

However, the Cougars, who play Arizona State tonight, are 0-6 in November the last two years.

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More with less: Bruce Keidan of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes that West Virginia Coach Don Nehlen gets more out of his limited material than any other college football coach in the country:

“Give him your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free. Give him players hardly anybody else recruited. Give him late bloomers, underachievers and high-school quarterbacks as skinny as Ichabod Crane.”

The overachieving Mountaineers have a 6-1 record and are in line for a bowl bid.

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Looking back: On this day in 1969, Tommy Prothro-coached UCLA defeated Washington at the Coliseum, 57-14.

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Trivia answer: Leo Ziel of Washington punted 17 times in a game against California in 1923.