Running the Trans America Footrace PDF Download

Author: Barry Lewis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780811725828
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 155

View

Book Description
Through deserts, over mountains, and across plains, 13 incredible athletes ran across America in the summer of 1992. Inspiring stories from a runner's perspective.

Author: Charles B. Kastner
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 0826343031
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

View

Book Description
On March 4, 1928, 199 men lined up in Los Angeles, California, to participate in a 3,400-mile transcontinental footrace to New York City. The Bunion Derby, as the press dubbed the event, was the brainchild of sports promoter Charles C. Pyle. He promised a $25,000 grand prize and claimed the competition would immortalize U.S. Highway Route 66, a 2,400-mile road, mostly unpaved, that subjected the runners to mountains, deserts, mud, and sandstorms, from Los Angeles to Chicago. The runners represented all walks of American life from immigrants to millionaires, with a peppering of star international athletes included by Pyle for publicity purposes. For eighty-four days, the men participated in this part footrace and part Hollywood production that incorporated a road show featuring football legend Red Grange, food concessions, vaudeville acts, sideshows, a portable radio station, and the world's largest coffeepot sponsored by Maxwell House serving ninety gallons of coffee a day. Drawn by hopes for a better future and dreams of fame, fortune, and glory, the bunioneers embarked on an exhaustive and grueling journey that would challenge their physical and psychological endurance to the fullest while Pyle struggled to keep his cross-country road show afloat. "In a wild grab for glory, a cast of nobodies saw hope in the dust: blacks who escaped the poverty and terror of the Old South; first-generation immigrants with their mother tongue thick on their lips; Midwest farm boys with leather-brown tans. These men were the 'shadow runners' men without fame, wealth, or sponsors, who came to Los Angeles to face the world's greatest runners and race walkers. This was a formidable field of past Olympic champions and professional racers that should have discouraged sane men from thinking they could win a transcontinental race to New York. Yet they came, flouting the odds. Charley Pyle's offer Of free food and lodging to anyone who would take up the challenge opened the race to men of limited means. For some, it was a cry from the psyche of no-longer-young men, seeking a last grasp at greatness or a summons to do the impossible. This pulled men on the wrong side of thirty from blue-collar jobs and families."--from the Preface "No writer 'owns' a swath of history the way Chuck Kastner 'owns' the wildly crazy C. C. Pyle Bunion Derbies. The inaugural race was a truly American epic: from its massive scope to the fact that it was dominated by a handful of second-rate runners who decided there was no future in continuing in the underdog role. Chuck's book makes you want to schedule your next vacation for Route 66, there to relive the zaniness and heroics of 1928."--Rich Benyo, editor, Marathon & Beyond Magazine "Bunion Derby's narrative arc transcends the academic approach one would expect from a university press."--Philip Damon, on the Peace Corps Writers website

Author: Andrew Speno
Publisher: Boyds Mills Press
ISBN: 1629797979
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 178

View

Book Description
This accessible and thoroughly researched nonfiction debut introduces young readers to a fascinating, little-known event—the Transcontinental Foot Race, which came to be known as the Bunion Derby. It is set in 1928, the height of the Roaring Twenties—a time of optimism, a time of excess, and the Age of Ballyhoo. Publicity-seeking Americans tried to outdo each other with outrageous stunts. Dance marathoners danced for days on end, pole-sitters sat atop flagpoles for weeks, trained athletes worked to beat records, and Charles Lindbergh made the first solo transatlantic flight. What could top this? Cyrus Avery, an ordinary Oklahoma businessman, teamed up with C. C. Pyle, the "P. T. Barnum of Professional Sports," to hold a transcontinental foot race. More than 100 men of all races and nationalities started the race in California and faced all manner of obstacles—from extreme weather to poor food and living conditions, to prejudice to injury—to make the cross-country journey across the United States, ending in New York City. This "Bunion Derby" pushed human endurance to the limits in an unforgettable show of "ballyhoo." This book is written in a folksy style that perfectly captures the mood and tone of the late 1920s and includes archival photographs, a map of the derby route, stats, a bibliography, and source notes.

Author: Geoff Williams
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 344

View

Book Description
An account of an incredible 3,423-mile foot race across America, the Great Foot Race of 1928, and C.C. Pyle, the legendary sports promoter who masterminded the event. A year before the Great Depression, endurance fads were all the rage, from dance marathons to flagpole sitting, and spectators would shell out hard-earned cash to watch. When notorious sports agent and promoter C.C. Pyle offered a $25,000 prize for a foot race from Los Angeles to New York, 199 runners from all over the world took their marks and half a million spectators flocked to the starting line. The race was grueling, but an astonishing 55 participants made it to the Madison Square Garden finish line 84 days later. In re-creating this classic American drama, the author accessed never-before-published material and the support of several descendants of the participants.--From publisher description.

Author: Tom McNab
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781908737717
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 467

View

Book Description
It is depression-era America and notorious huckster, Flanagan, plans the ultimate race, reeling in contestants with the promise of a glittering jackpot prize. At the starting line 2,000 audacious hopefuls line up from every walk of life and all ends of the globe, each with something to prove.

Author: Christopher McDougall
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 184765228X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 296

View

Book Description
A New York Times bestseller 'A sensation ... a rollicking tale well told' - The Times At the heart of Born to Run lies a mysterious tribe of Mexican Indians, the Tarahumara, who live quietly in canyons and are reputed to be the best distance runners in the world; in 1993, one of them, aged 57, came first in a prestigious 100-mile race wearing a toga and sandals. A small group of the world's top ultra-runners (and the awe-inspiring author) make the treacherous journey into the canyons to try to learn the tribe's secrets and then take them on over a course 50 miles long. With incredible energy and smart observation, McDougall tells this story while asking what the secrets are to being an incredible runner. Travelling to labs at Harvard, Nike, and elsewhere, he comes across an incredible cast of characters, including the woman who recently broke the world record for 100 miles and for her encore ran a 2:50 marathon in a bikini, pausing to down a beer at the 20 mile mark.

Author: Kathy Pycior
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 149184857X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 172

View

Book Description
An exciting tale of how a couple spent their two-week vacation every summer for ten years running a relay across the country, overcoming many obstacles. When they finished, they were exhausted and exhilaratedand still married!

Author: Dean Karnazes
Publisher: Rodale
ISBN: 1609614747
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 308

View

Book Description
The Road to Sparta is the story of the 153-mile run from Athens to Sparta that inspired the marathon and saved democracy, as told--and experienced--by ultramarathoner and New York Times bestselling author Dean Karnazes. In 490 BCE, Pheidippides ran for 36 hours straight from Athens to Sparta to seek help in defending Athens from a Persian invasion in the Battle of Marathon. In doing so, he saved the development of Western civilization and inspired the birth of the marathon as we know it. Even now, some 2,500 years later, that run stands enduringly as one of greatest physical accomplishments in the history of mankind. Karnazes personally honors Pheidippides and his own Greek heritage by recreating this ancient journey in modern times. Karnazes even abstains from contemporary endurance nutrition like sports drinks and energy gels and only eats what was available in 490 BCE, such as figs, olives, and cured meats. Through vivid details and internal dialogs, The Road to Sparta offers a rare glimpse into the mindset and motivation of an extreme athlete during his most difficult and personal challenge to date. This story is sure to captivate and inspire--whether you run great distances or not at all.

Author: Charles B. Kastner
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 0815654421
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 338

View

Book Description
2020 Peace Corps Writers Paul Cowan Award for the Best Book of Non-Fiction On April 23, 1929, the second annual Transcontinental Foot Race across America, known as the Bunion Derby, was in its twenty-fifth day. Eddie “the Sheik” Gardner, an African American runner from Seattle, was leading the race across the Free Bridge over the Mississippi River. Along with the signature outfit that earned him his nickname—a white towel tied around his head, white shorts, and a white shirt—Gardner wore an American flag, a reminder to all who saw him run through the Jim Crow South that he was an American and the leader of the greatest footrace in the world. Kastner traces Gardner’s remarkable journey from his birth in 1897 in Birmingham, Alabama, to his success in Seattle, Washington, as one of the top long-distance runners in the region, and finally to his participation in two transcontinental footraces where he risked his life, facing a barrage of harassment for having the audacity to compete with white runners. Kastner shows how Gardner’s participation became a way to protest the endemic racism he faced, heralding the future of nonviolent efforts that would be instrumental to the civil rights movement. Shining a bright light on his extraordinary athletic accomplishments and his heroism on the dusty roads of America in the 1920s, Kastner gives Gardner and other black bunioneers the attention they so richly deserve.

Author: Dean Karnazes
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440684936
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 308

View

Book Description
In one of his most ambitious physical efforts to date, Dean Karnazes attempted to run 50 marathons, in 50 states, in 50 days to raise awareness of youth obesity and urge Americans of all fitness levels to "take that next step." "UltraMarathon Man: 50 Marathons - 50 States - 50 Days", a Journeyfilm documentary, follows Dean’s incredible step-by-step journey across the country. Ultrarunning legend Dean Karnazes has run 262 miles-the equivalent of ten marathons-without rest. He has run over mountains, across Death Valley, and to the South Pole-and is probably the first person to eat an entire pizza while running. With an insight, candor, and humor rarely seen in sports memoirs (and written without the aid of a ghostwriter or cowriter), Ultramarathon Man has inspired tens of thousands of people-nonrunners and runners alike-to push themselves beyond their comfort zones and be reminded of "what it feels like to be truly alive," says Sam Fussell, author of Muscle. Ultramarathon Man answers the questions Karnazes is continually asked: - Why do you do it? - How do you do it? - Are you insane? And in the new paperback edition, Karnazes answers the two questions he was most asked on his book tour: - What, exactly, do you eat? - How do you train to stay in such good shape?