GERMAN ROAD RACES e.V.

Modern long-distance running or pedestrianism, as it was called, originated in Great Britain in the seventeenth century. From The Diary of Samuel Pepys for the Year A.D. 1663 to today’s countless British cross-country, road, and marathon races, these people, favored by climate and geography, have led the way in distance running.

Captain Robert Barclay Allardice (1779-1854), one of the first “gentlemen runners” of the 19th century, won a bet worth 16,000 English pounds in 1809. He succeeded in running 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours - with no more than one mile in each hour. Lithograph, 1813. ©Sportmuseum Berlin - AIMS Marathon-Museum of Running

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Marathon Feats through the Ages

Motivated by pride, patriotism, profit, glory, curiosity, and even by personal demons, men (and a few women) have per-formed fabulous trials of marathoning through the ages. Some stories are untrue—impossible, others are without substanti-ation, while many contain degrees of veracity from the pos-sible to absolute fact. The ancient scribe, Pliny, tells of Alexander the Great’s courier Philonides and the Spartan runner Anystis, both of whom ran the 148 miles inside the colosseum, while it is reported that “a boy of eight ran 68 miles between noon and evening.”

Guillaume Depping’s revealing Wonders of Bodily Strength and Skill tells of Turkish foot-runners traveling the 120 miles from Constantinople to Adrianople in 24 hours. He also describes the Abbe Nicquet as the swiftest traveler of the sixteenth century, “who reached Rome from Paris in six days four hours, although the distance was 350 leagues.”

Modern long-distance running or pedestrianism, as it was called, originated in Great Britain in the seventeenth century. From The Diary of Samuel Pepys for the Year A.D. 1663 to today’s countless British cross-country, road, and marathon races, these people, favored by climate and geography, have led the way in distance running. Two English footmen, running in Windsor Park in 1700, covered 22 miles in 2 ½ hours, while a few years later the teenaged Conrad Weiser ran footraces against Pennsylvania Indians. The Secret Diary of William Byrd re-veals an early eighteenth-century footrace of three hours “for a wager of two guineas.”

The infamous “Pennsylvania Walking Purchase of 1737” saw the Delaware Indians cheated out of thousands of square miles as three highly trained white men raced 70 miles through dense forest in an agreed-upon eighteen-hour marathon. The legendary Foster Powell ran the 50 miles between London and Bath in seven hours the year after the 1763 Treaty of Paris. He continued running all over England for the next thirty years. At age sixty, he won a heavy wager for running the 402-mile roundtrip between London and York in five days 15 ¼ hours.

Marathon-like walks and runs punctuated the leisure hours of both English gentlemen and the working class for the entire nineteenth century. Largely responsible for the phenomena was Captain Allardyce Barclay who walked 1000 miles in 1000 hours—a continuous feat accomplished between June 1 and July 14, 1809. George Wilson, a tax collector, better known as the Blackheath Pedestrian, walked 1000 miles in 20 days in the year 1815. John Stewart [1749-1822], “The Celebrated Walking Stewart,” toured on foot Europe, North America, and the Near East. Well-educated and philosophically inclined, the tall and handsome eccentric “refused to have his life recorded because his were the travels of the mind, and his object the discovery of the polarity of moral truth.”

A rash of American distance running performed on horse tracks began in 1824. Hoboken, New Jersey and Union, Long Island were the scenes of dozens of such affairs till the eve of war. The American Farmer of October 3, 1828, reported that a certain Cootes had broken Captain Barclay’s record and logged 1250 miles in 1000 con-secutive hours. The feat was surpassed several more times in the next half century. The American Turf Register and Sport-ing Magazine, during this ante-bellum period is filled with interesting and extraordinary marathon feats—mostly professional affairs.

Joshua Newsam was reported to have won $1000.00 by walk-ing 1000 miles in 18 days in Philadelphia during November, 1830. Perhaps the most implausible adventure is that of the Norwegian sailor—Ernst Mensen—who ran from Paris to Mos-cow in less than 14 days [1831], and a round trip from Con-stantinople to Calcutta in two months [1836]. Sport magazines and New York City newspapers were filled with pedestrian feats during the 1840s and 1850s. Ten, fifteen, and twenty mile races—carefully supervised by officials and gamblers—produced nearly modern performances. Foreigners, Americans, and American Indians were improving records and earning handsome purses. The Diary of Philip Hone, Spirit of the Times, Bell’s Life in London, and many other publications record man’s seeming endless desire to run—for whatever reasons might en-gender the human species to such enterprises.

For some twenty years, between 1870 and 1890, English and American sport aficionados were caught up in six-day go-as-you-please contests. Profitable, exotic, and frequently dangerously exhausting, the names of Edward Payson Weston and Daniel O’Leary became synonymous with running 500 miles or more in six days and six nights. Hundreds of thousands of people paid from fifty cents to two dollars to see the sight. A score of “500” men emerged during the age until finally tiny George Littlewood raced 623 ¾ miles in 125 hours, 34 minutes, resting a total of 16 hours 26 minutes. It was all done in December of 1888, and on the little sawdust-tanbark track inside Madison Square Garden—an authentic Olympian marathon feat.

Both Weston and O’Leary walked on into the twentieth cen-tury, posting significant times even though well past seventy years of age. The unbelievable Weston walked the American continent during the spring of 1910. In England, 1921, George Cummings walked 420 miles from London to Edinburgh in 82 hours. The year before, 81 year-old Daniel O’Leary walked from Philadelphia to Atlantic City in 12 hours. During 1928 and 1929, entrepreneur Charles C. (“Cash and Carry”) Pyle, or-ganized cross-continent “Bunyun Derbies.” The bizarre affairs—well orchestrated to catch the imagination (and monies) of thousands of Americans—culminated in an Oklahoma Indian’s close victory over Joe Salo of Passaic, New Jersey. Nineteen-year-old Andy Payne staggered into New York City on June 1, 1928—90 days after leaving Los Angeles. He collected $25,000, Salo $10,000, eight others split unevenly the remaining $9,500. “The other 45 [finishers] received only a verbal citation for their guts and staying power.”

Edward Payson Weston died at 90 years in 1929—the same year that Abraham Lincoln Monteverde, a 60-year-old bookbind-er, walked from New York to San Francisco in 79 days. By this date, the compulsive South African runner, Arthur Newton, was setting records at ultra-marathon distances—50 miles in 6 hours and 100 miles in 14 hours, and 152 1/3 miles in 24 hours —all when past his fiftieth birthday. During the spring of 1960, two British soldiers and a Russian medical doctor, Dr. Barbara Moore, walked across the American continent. Fifty-year-old John Sinclair walked 216 miles in 47 hours 42 minutes without stopping once; he also walked from John O’Groats to Land’s End (600 miles) in 19 days 22 hours.29

Two years earlier in 1967, he walked 900 miles from Cape Town to Pretoria in 23 days. In 1964, Don Shepherd, another South African, walked and jogged alone across the United States in 73 days only to have his 1964 record broken by 8 days in 1969, by speed runner and British Olympian, Bruce Tulloh—whose 64 days, 21 hours, and 30 minutes remains the record at the present time.

Professional distance runner, Australian Bill Emmerton, has run some 150,000 miles in his eventful and bizarre career. In 1968, he ran across Death Valley, and repeated the feat again four months later. “Man believed sane runs through Death Valley,” headlined the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. In October of 1969, John Tarrant of South Africa ran 400 laps on a track at Walton-on-Thames, England, in 12:31:10—a world record for 100 miles. It was promptly broken by 16 minutes in 1970 by Dave Box of South Africa. America’s greatest super distance runner is Ted Corbitt, a New York City physiotherapist, who has accumulated a tenth of a million miles in 35 years of running. Clarence De Mar, John A. Kelley, John J. Kelly, Nicholas Costes, Browning Ross, Lou Gregory, are other Americans who have probab-ly run 100,000 miles or more. There must be others. One of the greatest runs occurred on November 4, 1973, when Ron Bentley of England ran 161.3 miles in 24 hours, beating Hayward’s record by two miles. That same month, an Irish-born Australian, Tony Rafferty, 34, ran 3686 miles from Fremantle on the west coast of Australia to Surfers Paradise on the east coast to break the 44-year-old world record by 21 miles. He did it in 74 days, averaging nearly 50 miles a day.

In 1974, incorrigible Bill Emmerton ran 21 miles down and then up to the top of the Grand Canyon in 7 hours 45 minutes. Lastly, in March of 1975, a South African Kalahari bushman easily outdistanced a champion distance runner in a ten-miler across the desert.30 Tokkelos, in his job as game tracker for Stoffel le Riche, chief ranger of the Kalahari game park, regularly runs eight hours nonstop, without food or water over soft desert sand and under a murderously hot sun. When tested by a physical education scientist at Stellenbosch University, the comment was made: “Staggering—his potential is simply staggering.”

The First American Marathon, September 19, 1896

The fall meeting of the Knickerbocker Athletic Club took place in New York City’s Columbia Oval on September 19, 1896. Yet the most historic event of the track meet was taking place in Stamford, Connecticut, exactly 25 miles away. As early as August 27, the Stamford Advocate showed considerable interest in this first American “Marathon.”31 World records were broken in the 600 yard dash and the quarter-mile hurdles, but it was the marathon finish that captured people’s imagination. At 3:51 p.m. a woman screamed, “They’re here! They’re coming!”

The cry was taken up in the grandstand. Women who knew only that the first race of its kind ever held in this country was nearing a finish, waved their handker-chiefs and fairly screamed with excitement.…  There was a pandemonium of joy. Judges stopped their work; athletes found time to become spectators.32

Pale-faced John J. McDermott of the Pastime Athletic Club had overcome fatigue and poor weather in 3:25:55.6, a half hour slower than the Athens Olympic victor of several months earlier. “The crowd was howling itself hoarse”—oblivious to the slow time—as the first two athletes circled the track and crossed the finish line. After all, history has been made—the first marathon race in America.

The Modern Olympic Marathon 1896-1972

Baron Pierre de Coubertin [1863-1937] conceived the idea of a modern version of the Olympic Games, but it was a French compatriot, Michel Breal [1832-1915], who thought of including a marathon race at the first Athens Games in April of 1896. Two years earlier, at the first meeting of the International Olympic Congress, delegate Breal “sent word to Baron de Coubertin recalling the legendary feat of Pheidippides and of-fering a trophy for a race to be run over the same course....”33 Coubertin’s autobiography confirms that “the marathon race was the creation of an illustrious member of the Institut de France,”34 Breal, the brilliant semanticist and student of Greek mythology, probably had no idea how completely captivating his marathon idea would become.

The world soon read of the Athens marathon victory by the Greek shepherd, Spiridion Louis; little was heard about the efforts of a certain Melpomene to enter this first Olympic marathon race. Her request was refused; accompanied by bicyclists, she nonetheless allegedly covered the 40 kilo-meters from Marathon to Athens in 4½ hours. The Greek paper, Akropolis, commented that “The Olympic Committee de-serves to be reprimanded, because it was discourteous in re-fusing a lady’s nomination. We can assure those concerned that none of the participants would have had any objections.”35

All the Olympic marathon victors and their stories are in-cluded in John Hopkins’ The Marathon.36 The marathon distance in Paris in 1900, was 40,260 meters, in 1904, 40 kilometers, and at the unofficial 1906 Games in Athens the distance of about 26 miles was, apparently, slightly longer than the first Olympic race. The most famous of all Olympic marathon runs was the London affair of 1908. Pietro Dorando collapsed time after time within yards of the finish yarn. A compassionate official helped the semiconscious Italian across the line; Johnnie Hayes was then declared the winner and the western world became acutely aware of the marathon race. The distance of this race was 42.263 kilometers or 26 miles 385 yards. It seems that British officials, desirous of accommodating the King of England, started the race at Windsor Castle and finished at the Royal box in the Olympic Stadium—a distance of precisely 26 miles 385 yards.37

The Queen of England awarded Dorando a special medal; his courage and deportment captured the sporting public. At Charing-Cross station, just before departing London, Dorando spoke to the London Times representative and a large crowd, pointing out the kindness of the English people, especially the Queen. “As the train left the station, the Italian national air was sung with great fervor.”38

K. K. McArthur, a South African policeman, won a 1912 Olympic marathon race of 24 miles, 1725 yards in 2 hours, 36 minutes, 54.8 seconds. The remarkable Finn, Hannes Kolehmainen won an elongated 26½-miler in 2:36:54.8 at the Antwerp Olympics of 1920. Paris in 1924 wit-nessed the 26 mile 385 yard distance, and another Finn, 40-year-old Albin Stenroos, who won in 2:41:22.6. This marathon distance would remain the standard to the present day. Olympic marathon champions, thereafter, have been: El Ouafi of Algeria in 1928 (2:32:57.0), Zabala of Argentina in 1932 (2:31:36.0), and Kitei Son of Korea/Japan at Berlin in 2:29:19.2.

The Games of the XIIth and XIIIth Olympiads were never held due to war. At London in 1948, an utterly exhausted Ettiene Gailly entered the Olympic stadium almost at a standstill, was passed by Cabrera of Argen-tina and Tom Richards of England—the South American winning in 2:34:51.6. Emil Zatopek of Czechoslovakia won gold medals at 5000 and 10,000 meters, and after several days rest won the 1952 Olympic marathon in 2:23:3.2. The element of speed had abruptly entered the traditional endurance event.

Another Algerian, Alain Mimoun, won in 1956, running through the streets of Melbourne in 2:25. Abebe Bikila, “The Lion of Ethiopia,”—the only double winner in Olympic marathon history—sailed through the 1960 Rome race in 2:15:16.2 and ran a magnificent 2:12:11.2. in Tokyo. Mexico City in 1968 was the splendid scenery for another Ethiopian—Mamo Walde—who ran 2:20:26.4 through the city’s thin mile-high air. The United States, after 64 years of trying, was represented by the 1972 Olympic marathon champion—Yale University’s Frank Shorter in 2:12:19.7.

No pattern emerges except years of hard, intelligent work, gradual adaptation to a variety of external/internal stresses, and the slow apprehension by physicians and physiologists that a marathoner’s greatness is all of the above plus the strong possibility of a genetically inherited talent.

by John Apostal Lucas

*Originally printed in: The Amateur Athlete, 28 (November 1957), 10-13.

Reprinted with permission from: Lucas, John, John Apostal Lucas: Teacher, Sport Historian, and One Who Lived His Life Earnestly. A Collection of Articles and Essays with an Autobiographical Sketch. (Lemont, PA: Eifrig Publishing, 2009), p. 1-8.
 

Available for purchase at www.eifrigenterprises.com.

Eifrigenterprises

John Lucas has dedicated his nearly half-century of academic life at Penn State University to researching and writing about his first love of sport, track and field, and the Olympics. 

He has attended every Summer Olympics since the 1960 Rome Games and has written several books, including Future of the Olympic Games.  From his over 200 monographs and articles, Lucas has selected a score of his articles written since 1953 for this anthology.  They cover the range of his academic interests.

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