C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race by Geoff Williams

This last week I finished reading a story about a true ultramarathon: "C.C. Pyle's First Annual International Transcontinental Foot Race, From Los Angeles to New York" nicknamed by sportswriters of the time: "The Bunion Derby". The book chronicles several of the runners of the race, from their motivation for partaking in such an outlandish event with only meager preparation or knowledge of what they where about to try to accomplish, to pain, blisters, sprains, strains gained from running across the entire continent to a successful finish in New York, or where ever they might have dropped from the race.

The runners traversed 3421.5 miles over a span of 84 days, never once taking a full day of rest. In case you're curious, that's averaging about 40.7 miles per day, for almost 3 months! Try that one on for size Ultramarathon Man. Considering the foot wear they wore was nothing like the comfort cushioned cloud riders we use now, the determination these men had to finish surpasses any modern day ultra. 55 runners out of 199 finished. The winner was Andy Payne, a Cherokee from Foyil, Oklahoma. He covered the distance in 588 hours 40 minutes and 13 seconds. That works out to an average pace of 10:19 minutes per mile. He was flyin'. Here's a picture of the champ (taken from the Andy Payne Memorial Races website):



Read this book if you like reading about running, crazy endurance events or if you're a masochist looking for a new pastime.

Running moment of the week: I guess this has been a normal week in running, just putting in the miles, I cannot think of any special moment. Mostly runs in town, one hill workout on some country roads and a trail run today out at the lake. Maia and I did go on two seven mile runs this week and she ran really well, after a little encouragement. Together we averaged 7:45 minutes per mile. After which she barely moved for the rest of the morning.

2/18 - 2/24
total miles: 59.8
time: 7:48

YTD miles: 441.7