Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:00 — 38.9MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Pandora | iHeartRadio | JioSaavn | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More
By Davy Crockett
During the 1970s, the modern-era of ultrarunning was slowly increasing. The term “ultramarathon” (“ultra” for short) was introduced by legendary Ted Corbitt about 1957 and by the early 1970s it was being used more often to make the distinction with the public that athletes could run further than the marathon distance.
100-mile races were not yet widely prevalent and open to all, but the spark had been kindled to bring back the distance that many hundreds of runners had achieved before World War II. The shorter ultra-distance races including 50-miles were ever-increasing, including races such as the JFK 50 in Maryland, the Metropolitan 50 in New York City, London to Brighton in England, and the Comrades Marathon in South African. Many other ultradistance races were put on around the New York area by Ted Corbitt and various point-to-point ultras were raced throughout Great Britain.
| Please consider supporting ultrarunning history by signing up to contribute a little each month through Patreon. Visit https://www.patreon.com/ultrarunninghistory |
As the 1970s began, for the first time in decades, daring pioneer long-distance women athletes again joined in the 100-mile quest, with some opposition because of the lack of public acceptance for women to compete in long distances.
During the late 1960s, 100-mile races started to make a comeback both in England and in the United States. Walking 100 miles in under 24 hours became popular in Europe and similar events also started to be held in America, featuring a legendary lumberjack walker from Montana.
For the first time, Death Valley became a harsh target location for athletes that are now long-forgotten to prove they could overcome suffering and cover 100 miles during intense summer heat. These attempts received national attention and also frustrated Death Valley Monument rangers. But they would lay the foundational idea of what eventually became the Badwater Ultramarathon.
100-mile attempts mostly ceased across the world during the 1940s due to World War II. By 1946 some isolated 100-mile attempts reemerged, including a walking event in England where seven athletes accomplished the distance in less than 24-hours. Rex Whitlock of Great Britain walked the 100-mile Bath Road course in an amazing 17:44:40 in 1952.
After decades of 100-mile races, matches and successful finishes in less than 24 hours before 1930, the Great Depression turned ultrarunners’ attention to more important matters – surviving. Opportunities to earn a living as a professional runner dried up as public interest waned. Memories of past accomplishments and records faded. Occasionally the newspapers would pull out of their dusty archives a story about Edward Payson Weston’s walking wonders which was treated as “believe it or not” oddities, rather than something that others could accomplish.
In the 1920s one of the greatest British ultrarunner ever appeared, who made a serious impact on the forgotten 100-mile ultrarunning history before World War II. He was Arthur Newton of England, South Africa, and Rhodesia was a rare ultrarunning talent who had world-class ability in nearly all the ultrarunning distances from 50 km to 24-hours. Newton learned most of his serious running on a farm in remote Africa and was bold enough to step onto the world stage and beat everyone. His dominance in the early years of South Africa’s Comrades Marathon (54 miles) helped the race get off the ground to become the oldest and largest ultramarathon in the world.
For at least 150 years, running or walking 100 miles within 24 hours has been an impressive feat sought after by thousands.