THE ACCURACY OF OUR FOREBEARS
by Nick Marshall
Doubts have been expressed by modern runners over the years about the performance totals credited to participants in 6-day races during the pedestrian craze more than a century ago.
In light of how records have dramatically improved at all the shorter running distances, people have understandably wondered why the standards In this event established in the 1880s remain “world-class” in quality. More men surpassed 600 miles during that decade than in the modern era.
At a casual glance, something seems amiss. Didn’t those guys back then have only a primitive knowledge of diet, and lack the benefits of present-day shoe technology and scientific training methods? So how’d they manage to produce such tremendous athletic results?
I’m an extremely skeptical person about many things. Oddly, though, I’ve always placed a lot of credence in the validity of the claims made on behalf of the old-timers. To me, these claims could be categorized as “awesome, but plausible.”
That is, they make sense if you take some unusual factors into account—factors which have not been operative in other running events.
Paradoxically, the primary reason for believing the old accounts is because of the presence of money. While dollars can certainly be a corrupting factor (especially in terms of the way large amounts of cash could possibly encourage cheating), in this case it is more likely to have helped serve a regulating function.
To wit, the headline races of the golden age of pedestrianism were intensely scrutinized. They were professional affairs which literally offered extreme riches to the victors. For a brief period, this type of ultradistance contest could make a person wealthy. While people who run for fun may feel the lure of big money has an ignoble taint to it, there is no doubt that it can be a powerful motivator for individuals who may be talented but poor.
As professional affairs, such races were able to attract some of the most outstanding athletes of the day. While baseball was a popular pastime, basketball hadn’t even been invented yet, and other modern sports were in their infancy, compared to footracing, which had been around longer than recorded history. The major six-day races received tremendous publicity. They were front-page stories, so the winners could achieve fame as well as fortune. Again, this was an extremely powerful motivator for someone to train as hard as possible for success, and then thrash themselves to the maximum in the event itself.
Still, while that suggests these were running events in which the competition was more deadly serious than anything modern ultrarunners experience, how can we be sure they results which emerged from them can be trusted in terms of their accuracy. Inasmuch as they were held at indoor venues, on short tracks, the sheer volume of laps involved in someone’s completing 500 or 600 miles offers plenty of room for errors. Many of us are all too familiar with how easy it is for lapcounting mistakes to occur in long track ultras, even on 1/4 mile ovals.
Furthermore, I’ve heard modern doubters express concerns over the simple trustworthiness of the track lengths on which they performed their feats. After all, they lacked the rigorous course certification processes which are insisted upon nowadays if times or distances in a race are to be accepted as accurate. How do we know they weren’t sloppy in how they measured a venue. Done casually, one could give a distance for a lap which might easily be off by a few percent. Multiply that by thousands of laps, and you could end up with results that deviated from reality by many miles.
The issue of measurement is an interesting one. Decades after the fact, we end up mainly relying on trust that a particular race locale was truly what it was represented as. For instance, Jesse Owens set some of his world records during college track meets. I’ve never seen their veracity questioned and have no reason to doubt their accuracy. Yet at this late date, I suspect the paperwork proving the college tracks he ran on were correctly surveyed was lost to history long ago.
Stuff like that is a backbone of recordkeeping, yet it is one of those behind-the-scenes technical matters that rarely gets noted for the ages. Even more transitory is information on nuts-&-bolts things like officiating decisions, or lapcounting procedures.
However, in the case of the 6-day races, press coverage at the time was so extensive that occasionally the reporting even included such esoteric topics as these.
I collect old newspapers and at an auction last year I was lucky enough to buy a big stack of issues from 1878-84 of a rare weekly sporting paper called “The Spirit of the Times.” While I’ve been surprised in the past by how thoroughly some 6-day races were covered by the general press of the day, I’d never seen any stories on these events which match the depth provided by this publication. Although “The Spirit of the Times” was mainly interested in horseracing, it would sometimes print columns of statistics on the big 6-day races, with charts on things like mile-by-mile split times, and hour-by-hour distance totals for the leaders. Nowadays, if you’d like to see what a Boston Marathon winner ran their 8th mile in, you’ll never be able to read that info in your paper. By contrast, old-time readers could find out that Charles Rowell’s time for his 447th mile was 13:04 . . . . and also discover that earlier he’d been off the track for 23 seconds during his 172nd mile!
This amazing trivia showed up in “The Spirit” on March 22, 1879. The story on the 3rd Astley Belt Race at Gilmore’s Garden in New York City the previous week gives the most detailed behind-the-scenes description I’ve ever come across on any race.
The extensive info proves exactly how scrupulous the officials were for this event, both in terms of the how the track was measured, plus the lapcounting procedures which were utilized. It’s nitty gritty stuff, the type of which you’d never see today. Yet it should lay to rest the doubts anyone might have about whether we can trust the results of these races from over a century ago.
Following are extensive excerpts from the paper, providing details on these aspects of the race. (Plus a paragraph on a subject race directors today certainly never have to worry about—crowds of gatecrashing spectators that had to be brought under control by club-wielding police!)
The account should give modern readers an appreciation of how well the best of these 6-day races were managed. They were definitely not conducted in a casual manner:
“The track was exactly one-eighth of a mile in circuit, measured eighteen inches from the inner edge of the curb. It was staked out by C. H. Haswell, the well-known civil engineer, and to correct any error made by the carpenters in laying the curb, he resurveyed it just before the start, with the assistance of three of the judges. The straight sides were each 191ft, 9.5in., the east half circle 138ft., and the west half-circle I38ft. 5in. To get this measurement it was found necessary to go out in some places two and even three feet from the pillars which enclose the inner circle. . . . The track was ten feet wide, and a stout railing set back three feet from each edge, fully protected the contestants from any interference, either accidental or intentional.
“A huge blackboard was erected at the east end of the ring, and every mile made by either contestant promptly bulletined in figures plainly legible from the remotest corner of the building. Every spectator could see these figures, and there was no need to ask questions as to the score.
“Just across the track from the scorer’s stand a place was railed off along the front of the boxes, on which each man’s name was painted, with blank spaces for miles and laps. Whenever either contestant passed the score, men detailed for that purpose hung up cards showing the number of miles and laps finished. This enabled each competitor to know always exactly how far he had traveled, and also to watch for himself that the record was correctly kept.
“The arrangements for the comfort and convenience of contestants, spectators, and reporters were better than at any previous race in New York City, and left little to be desired. An enclosure for the working members of the press was made just behind the scorer’s stand, with accommodations for twenty writers at a time, and a duplicate copy of the tally sheets kept expressly for their use. . . .
“The scoring was done by six of the amateur athletic clubs of this vicinity; each club serving one day. New York A. C., Monday; Brooklyn. A. C., Tuesday; Harlem A. C., Wednesday; Scottish American A. C., Thursday; Manhattan A. C., Friday; and American A. C., Saturday. Sometimes seven or eight, and never less than five, men were on duty at all times, and the tiresome work was done faithfully and correctly. Only one claim was made during the week, some parties thinking that Ennis had been marked one lap too many, but it is by no means certain that the claim was well founded. The thanks of the contestants are due to these young gentlemen, who, at great inconvenience to themselves, gave their time from day to day for the purpose of guaranteeing the score. . . .
“There was no referee nor umpire, and the race was controlled by a board of eleven judges, five from the staff of as many sporting newspapers, and one from each of the scoring clubs. Two or more of these judges were present at all times, and usually five or six were on duty. Some of them served a little time, some a great deal, and one, our neighbor of Murray Street, fairly lived in the building, and was on the track almost as many hours as the pedestrians. They took general supervision of the track and the contestants, and assisted in preserving order and ensuring a clear course. As far as deciding any claims of fouling or unfairness, their duties were happily light. Soon after the start Rowell passed O’Leary, and stepped in front of him, but seemed to think he had not sufficient lead to warrant this course, and immediately stepped out again. Just as he did this O’Leary stepped out to go around Rowell, and a collision resulted, but no claim was made. On the 54th mile, by direction of one of the judges, the scorers made this notation: “On the fifth lap O’Leary crowded Rowell out on the Madison Avenue turn, and nearly fouled.” On the last day, when Harriman, with ten miles to go, came out of his tent, almost unable to move, Rowell and Ennis successively linked arms with him, and walked twice around the track. As the rules demanded ‘traveling without assistance,’ men who were betting against Harriman and Ennis reaching 450 and 473 miles objected to this performance, and an appeal was made. As regards Harriman, the claim was just, but the depth of stupid meanness was reached in arguing that Ennis, who was stronger and fresher than on the first day, and had given, not received, assistance, should be penalized for a kindly act toward Harriman. Although denying the justice of this absurd claim against Ennis, the judges thought best to afford the betting malcontents no pretext for a quibble, and compelled both Ennis and Harriman to walk an extra quarter mile on account of the disputed distance.
“The management was intelligent, untiring, and thoroughly impartial. The attendance was unexpectedly large, especially on the first night, and no preparations had been made to accommodate and control so great a multitude. But as soon as it was found that full houses would be the daily and nightly rule, suitable arrangements were made for the comfort of as many spectators as the building would hold. So great was the crowd on Sunday night, that the doors were closed before the start, and the several thousand men thus shut out became somewhat unruly, burst open the gates, and would have speedily overrun the track and stopped the race but for their timely though unnecessarily brutal repulse by the police. As is usual in such cases, the ringleaders escaped, while a few hundred innocent but over-curious citizens went home well clubbed.”
[Next time: Modern runners may mistakenly assume that our ancestors always had to contend with inferior facilities. Uh, uh, that’s not necessarily true. They weren’t dummies, and a description of how their best indoor tracks were constructed may actually have you wishing you had such a nice surface to run on.]
Tags: Pedestrianism
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Tags: Pedestrianism
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on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 8:58 am and is filed under Pedestrianism, Ultra history.
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