Pedestriantism
Pedestriantism was a form of mostly professional competitions in running / walking over a long distance, practiced especially in the 19th century . Out of this, both ultra- long distance running and racing have developed. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, watching Pedestrians competitions was a popular form of entertainment, such as horse racing, before being replaced by bicycle racing . As early as the 17th century, nobles were letting their footmen (servants) who accompanied the carriage race to win z. B. to order the food in the next restaurant. From these competitions, with the help of the entertainment press, at the end of the 18th century a multitude of long-distance competitions developed, which were then called pedestriantism.
Special runs
The exuberant enthusiasm began with Captain Robert Barclay Allardice , who walked 1000 miles (= 1609 km) in 1000 consecutive hours on the racecourse in Newmarket from June 1st to July 12th, 1809 and received a prize money of 1000 guineas (= approx . 50,000 EUR today). Approx. 10,000 spectators came to the event. A popular competition ( Centurion ) was to walk / jog 100 miles (= 160.9 km) in 24 hours. One of the real ultra-long distance runners was the Norwegian Mensen Ernst , who ran in 59 days from Constantinople to Calcutta and back in 1836 , a distance of 8,300 km with average daily stages of 150 km.
World championship belt
The climax of pedestriantism were the competitions in New York and London for the belt donated by Sir John Astley for the world championship in the six-day run. Because of the holy holiday, there was no running on Sunday. In the sold-out exhibition halls, the participants ran almost the whole day (approx. 20 hours a day). It was your own fault who took a break. Between 1875 and 1880 the world record of 500 miles (= 804.5 km) was finally increased by George Littlewood in New York to 623.75 miles (approx. 1003.7 km) in 139 hours and 59 minutes. Littlewood stopped four hours before the end of the event to try to improve the world record even further on another occasion, but failed to do so. Without any records, the audience soon stayed away, so that pedestriantism slowly lost its importance. The training methods, however, have been handed down. Hannes Kolehmainen's world records are due to the fact that he was trained by his older brother, who was a pedestrian in the USA. It wasn't until 2005 that the Littlewood record was broken by Yiannis Kouros , who ran 1036.850 km.
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency/results.asp#mid
- ^ Peter Radford: The celebrated Captain Barclay. Sport, money and fame in Regency Britain. London: Headline 2001, ISBN 0-7472-7222-0
- ↑ Matthew Algeo: Pedestrianism When Watching People Walk What America's Favorite Spectator Sport. Chicago 2004, ISBN 9781613743973
- ↑ John A. Lucas: Pedestrianism and the Struggle for the Sir John Astley Belt, 1878–1879 ( Memento of the original from October 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Noël Tamini: La saga des pédestrians. Rodez: Editions Edior, 1997
- ↑ Arnd Krüger : Many roads lead to Olympia. The changes in training systems for medium and long distance runners (1850–1997) . In: N. Gissel (Hrsg.): Sporting performance in change . Czwalina, Hamburg 1998, pp. 41-56.
