Ultrarunning History

By Davy Crockett  Dick Mendenhall runs in the 1977 Western States 100 The establishment of the Western States Endurance Run (Western States 100) in 1977 was one of the most important pivotal events in the history of ultrarunning. During the next decade, the existing ultrarunning sport experienced a major shift from roads and tracks to trails and mountains. Other 100-mile races were spawned from th...

By Davy Crockett  Get the new book that tells the story of Spartathlon and Kouros' famed 1983 run there Yiannis Kouros from Greece is considered by most, as the greatest ultrarunner of all time. That is a bold statement, but there are few that dispute this statement. The late “Stubborn Scotsman,” Don Ritchie, is certainly in the conversation, Some can try arguing for certain mountain trail ultraru...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article In previous articles, stories were shared about various walks across America in the 1800s. In 1909 Edward Payson Weston, the most famous American Pedestrian of the 1800’s made his transcontinental walking attempt in the twilight of his walking career, at the age of 70. His amazing walk captured the attention of the entire country and was...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article In recent years, some of the ultrarunners who have run across America performed it by pushing baby joggers to carry their stuff in a self-supported mode. Once when Phil Rosenstein was pushing his jogger during his transcontinental run, an alarmed passing motorist called the police, and reported that a crazy person was pushing his baby alo...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article On May 10, 2019, America will celebrated the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad. This is the third article in a series to recognize some historic accomplishments walking or running across the American continent. In the previous articles, the history was given of the 1855 walk across South America by Natha...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article Dakota Bob On May 10, 2019, America will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad. This is the second article in a series to recognize some historic accomplishments walking or running across the American continent. In the previous article, the history was given of the 1855 walk across South Americ...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article On May 10, 2019, America will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, that was recognized with a “Golden Spike” ceremony at Promontory Point, Utah. For more than 150 years adventurers desired to travel across the American continent by various means: horse, wagon, train, automobile, and e...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article After the golden age of Pedestrianism of the late 1800's, a new breed of ultra-distance runners emerged in the early 1900s. Events were few. The world wars and the great depression all but snuffed out their efforts to continue to go the distance, to demonstrate what was possible. It became impossible to try to make a living with their leg...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article Learn about the beginnings of Barkley, and the early years in this new book The Barkley Marathons, the toughest trail race in the world, is held in and near Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee, with a distance of more than 100 miles. The first year it was held was in 1986, and it is now world famous. Only 40 runners are selected to run. B...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article The famous prison and the start gate Read about the beginnings of the Barkley and the early years in this new book. Get it in your country's Amazon site. The Barkley Marathons, with its historic low finish rate (only 15 runners in 30 years), is perhaps the most difficult ultramarathon trail race in the world. It is held in and near Frozen...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article Richard Manks Can a person walk or run 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours, doing a mile in each and every hour for nearly 42 days? That was the strange question that surfaced in 1809 in England. In Part 1 of the 1000-milers I covered the attempts to reach 1,000 miles as fast possible. This part will cover what became known as the Barclay Match, w...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article In the 1980s running 100 miles started to become more popular for the non-professional runner to attempt. By 2017 some in the ultrarunning community viewed running 100 miles as fairly common place. In recent years a saying of “200 is the new 100” emerged as a few 200-mile trail races were established, meaning that 100 miles used to be vie...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article In Part One on Endurance Riding, I covered the very early history of the sport of endurance riding from 1814-1954 when forgotten individuals established the sport they called "endurance riding" and paved the future for the sport. In Part Two I covered the early history of the Western States Trail Ride (Tevis Cup) from 1955-1970 and worked...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article The 100 x 100 list now includes 21 accomplished athletes who have finished 100 or more races of 100 milers or more. This article will introduce the Sandra and Richard Brown, both on the list, and highlights their amazing 100-mile careers and some of the events in Europe unfamiliar to American ultrarunners. Sandra was the very first person...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article (Listen an old podcast episode too, with audio clips from some of the runners.)  Early history of 100-milers The sport of running 100 miles competitively has existed for multiple centuries. In the 1800s, the most prolific 100-mile runner was Frank Hart (1856-1908), a black runner from Boston, Massachusetts. He reached 100 miles in at leas...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article You might ask, what does the history of endurance riding have to do with ultrarunning? There are many close parallels between these two endurance sports. Ultrarunners should feel indebted to those of the endurance riding sport who had the vision to establish some early trail 100-milers for runners. The trail 100-miler inherited many of th...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article Endurance riding is the equestrian sport that includes controlled long-distance riding/racing. The sport has existed for more than a century in various forms. 100-mile trail ultramarathons, especially the Western States Endurance Run, Old Dominion 100, and Vermont 100 can trace their roots to endurance riding. Other trail 100s that emerge...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast episode and a full article There is a special breed of ultrarunner that historian Jim Shapiro in 1980 called the “solo artist.” These runners usually had solid ultrarunning abilities, but instead of regularly completing in races, they used their abilities to accomplish stunts. This was done to garner attention from spectators and fans and to gain income and sponsor...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast and a full article During the World War II period in 1940s, ultradistance races in America totally disappeared. Many of the talented runners turned in their leather running shoes for leather boots and served their country in war. But as servicemen, there were many endurance activities that took place both on the bases and on the battle field. A “forced march” is a...

By Davy Crockett Both a podcast and a full article 1918 advertisement The original walkathons were not the relatively tame fundraising walks of the 1970s for causes. Instead these walkathons were brutal endurance events that had their heyday in the mid-1930s. These walkathons were not ultrarunning events. They were rather twisted walking events, if it could even be called walking. They were mostly...

By Davy Crockett  Both a podcast and a full article The fifty-mile race is a distance most of today's ultrarunners eventually run. In 2017 there were about 300 50-mile races held in America with about 16,000 unique finishers. At nearly twice the distance of a marathon, it truly involves a different approach than running a marathon both mentally and physically. Ultrarunning legend, David Horton onc...

By Davy Crockett Both a podcast and a full article As the Great Depression began raging across the world, race events for professional ultrarunners pretty much dried up in the United States. All professional sports suffered in America during that time. For a few years, promoters in Canada filled the void, and were able to attract some of the most talented American ultrarunners to head northward, t...

By Davy Crockett Both a podcast and a full article Runners seen through the window running 1970 Last Day Run For the common man, we frequently make history without knowing it at the time. As years pass, one can look back and discover that certain events, which at the time seemed insignificant, actually played an important part in history. Such events weren’t forgotten or pushed aside; their storie...

By Davy Crockett Both a podcast and a full article (Listen to the podcast episode which includes the bonus story about my love for the Grand Canyon, and the 1,000 miles I've run down in it.) Crossing the Grand Canyon on foot is something many visitors of the spectacular Canyon wonder about as they gaze across its great expanse to the distant rim. Crossing the Canyon and returning back is an activi...

By Davy Crockett Both a podcast and a full article Prior to the 1960s, most of the ultrarunners participating in ultradistance races were professionals. It was a spectator sport. The general public never had serious thoughts that they too could run ultradistances. My New Book! Grand Canyon Rim to Rim History In 1963, President John F. Kennedy unintentionally played a key role that provided the spa...