Don Choi, age 73, a long-time postman from San Francisco, has been inducted into The American Ultrarunning Hall of Fame as its 20th member. Don is recognized as being “the father of the modern multi-day race.” He made a significant historic contribution to the sport of ultrarunning by bringing back the multi-day races after an absence of 75 years. He organized the first modern six-day race in 1980 at Woodside, California. As a pioneer ultrarunner, he set nearly all the initial modern-day ultra records over 100 miles and won more than 30 early American ultras. In 1984, he was the first American to surpass 500 miles in six days, since 1903. During the 1980s he participated in 21 six-day races, more than anyone in the world, and won nine of them.
The ultimate showman, P.T. Barnum of circus fame, was surprisingly the first serious ultrarunning promoter and established the first six-day race in America. He was famous for the saying “There’s a sucker is born every minute,” and figured out how to get America to come out by the thousands to watch skinny guys walk, run and suffer around a small indoor track for hours and days as part of his “Greatest Show on Earth” presented in the heart of New York City. In this episode, details of Barnum’s connection to ultrarunning history are told for the first time.
Congratulations to Eric Clifton, originally from North Carolina, now of California, who was inducted into the 
The six-day race became the most popular ultrarunning (pedestrian) event of the 19th century. In 
Recently, the six-day race received some attention in ultrarunning news because the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) announced that they would no longer recognize the six-day event or keep records for it. This shocked many ultrarunning historians and particularly runners who participate in multi-day fixed-time races. After a brief uproar, the new IAU leadership back-peddled, somewhat admitted to their ignorance about six-day ultrarunning history and agreed to continue to recognize the event that has roots in the sport going back nearly 250 years.
