Many people imagine the marathon to be the pinnacle of running endurance, but people have been pushing themselves to even further distances since the middle of the last century. It seems hard to imagine now, but in the 1870’s up to 75,000 people would gather to cheer on the contestants in six-day walking events in America, with the winners gaining national fame and astronomical earnings by the standards of that time. It all started in 1867 when Edward Payson walked from Portland to Chicago in 25 days, captivating the nation. A rivalry quickly developed between Payson and Daniel O’Leary, a recently-immigrated Irish farmer, and this rivalry spurred a series of 6-day races which developed into a “Long-Distance Championship of the World”. The format quickly changed from walking to walk/run, with participants only sleeping a few hours a night and continuing on. Fred Hitchborn set a new record of 565 miles for this event, and pioneered African-American participation in sport. However the rise of the automobile and the lack of promoters led to the popularity of the series dying out in the early 20th century.
However other great ultramarathons were being started up at the same time. In 1921 the first Comrades Marathon was held in South Africa to commemorate soldiers fallen during World War 1. This 90 kilometre long race has now become the world’s longest ultramarathon, attracting a field of 13,000 yearly. During the apartheid era, this marathon was notable for being one of the few events where people participated regardless of colour. In 1953 a London to Brighton ultramarathon was established along a popular car touring route and continued for over 50 years. In the 1950’s and 60’s, Ted Corbitt was a noted ultrarunning pioneer and is indeed today known as ‘the father of modern ultrarunning’.
However, it was only with the marathoning craze in the 1970’s that interest in the ultrarunning really took off. In 1982 a group of people British RAF officers decided to test whether the original story behind the marathon was true – whether it was feasible that the Greek messenger Pheidippides has really run all the way from the Battle of Marathon to Sparta in 36 hours. They verified it was indeed feasible and the next year the Spartathlon was born. Other races were begun in extreme climes that tested the limit of endurance – for example the Badwater race in Nevada, which aimed to go from the lowest to the highest point in the continental United States over a distance of 135 miles. Begun in 1986, the Marathon des Sables is a seven day race through the Moroccan Sahara, and is considered one of the toughest events in the world.
The 6-day races of yesteryear have also made a resurgence – in 1984 the Cliff Young Australian 6-day race was founded in Colac, Australia, and has been the scene for many memorable performances over the years. The Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team was founded as a service to the ultrarunning community and has become the largest organiser of ultrarunning events in the world, holding 6 and 10 day events in addition to the 3100 Mile Self-Transcendence race, the longest road race in the world.
The Greek runner Yiannis Kouros has consistently made his mark as the leading ultrarunner in both distance and multi-day races, and holds the vast majority of the available world records – including recently at the Colac 6-day race in 2005 where he achieved an astonishing total of 1036km. In 2004 the Danish runner Jesper Olsen won the Colac 6-day en route to becoming the first person to achieve a fully documented run around the world.
