The word occasionally referred to running and walking in general. But more often than not it denoted long distance walking races between professional athletes. And of course the general public placed wagers on these reknowned professional athletes.
These competitive walking events can be traced back to the late 16 century in England.
The above is an article from the Evening Post of January 26th 1889.
The fact that they covered almost 100 miles or 169 km in 15 hours is rather staggering. They were cutting out 11.26 km every hour or 5 min 20 per kilometres. That means they would have passed the 50 km mark in 4hr 26 mins.
Clearly they may have had a somewhat loose definition of walking in those days and we can well suppose from these times that a good deal of running was involved in this particular race. Or perhaps the writer of the article got it wrong and it was a 24 hour race. Some of these events were labelled "Go as you please" and some were more strict.
There were international competitions. Here is one from the Evening Post of February 14th 1888. The times and distances in this case seem far more reasonable. Or one might assume that things were stricter in the Home country (as the colonials referred to England in those days).
Hancock and Scott had many competitions over the years, both in England and New Zealand. In this case Scott covers 64 miles in 12 hours or some 108 km. And that is still getting along at a very good clip indeed.
Some of these competitions were indoors with laps as short as 80 yards and covering over 70 miles! Now work out how many laps you would have to do! Hawera and Normanby Star, December 1st 1883.
We will leave the last word to Laurie who walked just under a marathon in 5 hrs and 6 mins. Evening Post 22nd October, 1885.
And that is Frank the pedestrian signing off ...
2 comments:
Scott did 1562 laps in his 71 mile walk with 22 laps to the mile.
Where ya dig this stuff up from frankie baby?
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