Showdown at Shepherd's Bush

In this day of organized races every weekend, and when it seems like everyone you know has run a marathon, or is planning to run one, it's hard to image that the marathon as a formal sporting event is so young.  In Showdown at Shepherd's Bush: The 1908 Olympic Marathon and the Three Runners Who Launched a Sporting Craze, David Davis takes the reader on a tour of the birth of the modern marathon.  It's not only a history of a race, but a great snapshot of the rise of the Olympic movement and sports in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Davis recounts the development of the first modern Olympics in 1896.  The organizers came up with the idea of commemorating Pheidippides's famous run from Marathon.  They devised a race from Marathon to Athens, a distance of about 25 miles.  At that time, the longest races were no more than 5 miles; the next longest race at the Olympics was 1500 meters.  With the establishment of the marathon race, which would become a highlight of the Olympics, they had "concocted an anomaly, on that would attract only the inexperienced, the ignorant, and the intrepid."  I loved the comment of the French runner who had competed in the 100 meter, then in the marathon: "One day I run a leetle way, vairy queek.  Ze next day, I run a long way, vairy slow."

The marathon stuck, and with some stumbles in intervening Olympics, came into its own in 1908 in London.  This was the first race to use what would become the standard marathon distance: 26 miles, 385 yards, a somewhat arbitrary distance to cover the course from Windsor Castle to the stadium at Shepherd's Bush.  Davis traces the lives and running careers of the participants, focusing on 3 runners.  Tom Longboat, a Canadian Indian, was a favorite going in, but dropped from the race.  The Italian Dorando Pietri finished first, but he had fallen over from exhaustion and some officials on the track helped him across the finish line, disqualifying him.  The Irish-American, Johnny Hayes was close behind Dorando and was awarded the gold due to Dorando's disqualification.

This dramatic and controversial finish made Dorando a household name.  Davis says "he was the first athlete to become globally famous because of the Olympics. . . . He remains the most celebrated loser in Olympic history."  The race also raised interest in the marathon, both for participants and viewers.  American promoters recruited these three runners and organized races in places like Madison Square Garden and baseball stadiums.  The runners travelled the country to run in these exhibition races, and cities across the country put on marathon races.  Soon, however, the world war took front and center and the first marathon craze died.  The Boston Marathon was the only race to survive.

Davis does a masterful job of placing the marathon race in the context of the history of the Olympics and sport, and putting in all the context of history.  It's an entertaining, readable history that anyone interested in popular culture and sports will enjoy.  But if you're a runner, a marathoner, one of those who is living the legacy started by Dorando and his fellow runners, you will love Davis's account.  Pick it up!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary digital review copy!

More Q

Did I mention that I have really been enjoying Evan Mandery's Q?  I finished it tonight; loved it.  I recommend it whole-heartedly.

In my last post, I didn't really say what Q is about.  In Q, the narrator's future self travels back in time repeatedly to correct his path.  Eventually the visits become more and more frequent and contradictory.  In one visit, his 60-year-old self encourages to become more socially involved.  Among other things, he then joins the Hash House Harriers, whose goal is to "acquire a good thirst and satisfy it in beer."  That, and the beer and jalape no poppers at Diablos Cantina, do not help him get healthy.

Then his 68-year-old self visits him and shows of his scars from open-heart surgery.  He decides to get serious about fitness:

I quit the Harriers and join the Central Park Running Club.  They meet on Tuesdays for interval training, Wednesdays to run hills, and Thursdays for speed workouts.  On weekends, the members take long runs, sometimes fifteen or twenty miles, either around the park loop, or up Riverside Drive, or east onto Randall's Island. . . . The running is addictive, and I find myself going out to train every morning. . . . In the fall I run the New York Marathon, in the spring, the Boston.  I begin to plot training regimens to get my marathon time down under three hours.  I consider the Hawaii ultra-marathon, one hundred miles on the Big Island.

However, his 72-year-old self shortly drops in and bursts his bubble.  "You need to stop running so much. . . . You're ruining your knees."  So, with his older self's encouragement, he takes up . . . swimming.

 Evan Mandery, Q: A Novel (Harper: New York, 2011), 303-308.

Boston Marathon

Today is Patriots' Day, which probably means nothing to you unless you live in Massachusetts or you're a marathon runner.  The 115th Boston Marathon was run today, as it is every Patriots' Day, with a new course record and a tight, competitive finish.  The Kenyans ruled the day (surprise!) with Geoffrey Mutai taking first in 2:03:02, followed four seconds later by his countryman Moses Mosop.  They both beat Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie's world record of 2:03:59.  (However, their records may not qualify as world records due to course certification.)  A 16 mph tailwind helped the runners along.  American Ryan Hall beat his PR of 2:06:17 by finishing in 2:04:58.  Just to keep these times in perspective, the leaders were averaging 4:41 minutes/mile.  Most of us can't conceive of running that fast for even100 yds (that would take 15 seconds) much less 26.2 miles.  Congratulations to these winners and all the runners today!

Mutai crossing the line with Mosop not far behind.

On a personal note, one of my key running goals, since I started running, is to qualify for and run in the Boston Marathon.  Boston is the only recreational marathon that requires entrants to run a qualifying time to enter.  Although my preference is to run ultramarathons on trails, I would still like to experience the history and pageantry of Boston.  It's like Mecca for runners.  So my plan has been to run one road marathon each year, with specific training toward a BQ time. In 2009, I came within 15 minutes of my qualifying time of 2:20 (QTs vary by age and gender.).  That's not exactly one little push at the end, but I felt like I could get there.  Then in 2010, I stayed on a great pace for 1/2 the marathon, but ran out of gas and ended up taking a little over 4 hrs to finish.  That was frustrating, but I knew my training hadn't been what it should have been, and still felt like I had a 3:20 marathon in me.

But now the Boston Athletic Association, raising the bar even farther, has lowered qualifying times by 5:59.  So for 2012, I would have to run a 3:20:59 to qualify (there was a built in 59 second grace period).  But for 2013, I would have to run 3:15:00 (no grace period).  To make matters worse, there will be a rolling registration period, so runners who have faster than the BQ time can register first; the slowest runners in the group might not have an opportunity to register until 2 weeks later.

I understand the organizers' dilemma, trying to maintain a great race and being as fair as possible with the entry process.  Says the race director, "We want people to get better, from a competitive perspective."  So, Mr. Race Director, you leave me no choice: get faster I will!  And if I don't get that 3:15:00 in the next couple of years, I'll see if I can crank out a 3:25 with my 45-50 year-old body!  (or a 3:30 at 50-54, or a 3:40 at 55-59, etc.)