2    THE HISTORY OF THE ULTRAMARATHON

The history of ultramarathon running is not so easy to pin down either.

The first “Marathon” was run by Pheidippides in the year 490 BC, who, according to the writings of the historian Herodotus, had to run from Athens to Sparta in two days to seek help in the war against the Persians. Five hundred years later, Plutarch and Lucian of Samosata, with reference to this and to Heraclides Ponticus, formed the legend, according to which after the victory of the Athenians over the Persians on the Plain of Marathon, this same Pheidippides had run from there into the city, where he reportedly said: “We have won!” upon which he then collapsed to the ground and died.

So if we accept the description of Herodotus, the birth of the ultramarathon predates that of the marathon itself. In this case, if we accept the definition of the ultramarathon from the previous chapter, the definition of the marathon should be derived from that of the ultramarathon! But we don’t want to be that petty.

So, legend has it that Pheidippides ran from Athens to Sparta in less than two days, then back to the Plain of Marathon and from there to announce the victory of the Athenians over the numerically much stronger Persians then again back to Athens. All things considered, we are therefore talking about a running performance of about 311 miles, assuming that the distance from Athens to Sparta is 153 miles and that from Marathon to Athens, 25 miles.

For more than 25 years (and officially since 1983), an ultramarathon race has been held on the route from Athens to Sparta, which follows the historic route pretty closely. The race is the Spartathlon, of which more details are given later in this book, in the chapter “Selected Races.”

There are many reasons for running long distances. In the past, in hunter gatherer times, it was necessary for survival. Long distances had to be covered daily in the search for food or to escape from being eaten by animals.

In armies all over the world, it used to be common practice to use messengers or couriers, who had to run long distances in order to pass on important news or to ask other states for help.

At this point, I would like to try to give a little more historical background of the ultramarathon than can be found in such sources as Wikipedia.

Ultramarathon running can definitely be traced back to the historical military messengers. As well as the “errand” of Pheidippides, several similar messengers can be found in history, especially Greek history, of course, where we read about a certain Euchidas, who in the year 479 BC wanted to run from his home village to Delphi, covering a distance of about 113 miles in the process.

Philonides, a messenger of Alexander the Great, is said to have run from Sicyon to Elis in under a day in the year 325 BC.

Something resembling the first 24-hour races did not appear until the 16th or 17th centuries, although they were not in a competitive form as we know them today. Instead, they were exhibition runners, or professional runners, who wanted to use their running talents to gain fame and fortune. In June 1754, for example, John Cook from England was between £50 that he could run 100 miles in 24-hours. However, after 12 hours and 60 miles, he was forced to give up.

A real race between two people in the context of a 24-hour race took place in October 1806 in London, when Abraham Wood and Robert Barclay raced against each other. Wood had to run 20 miles more in order to win the race and a prize money of 600 guineas. During the event, Barclay had been supplied by another person with an opiumcontaining drink, after which he fell hopelessly behind. Wood went on to win and to complete a distance of about 154 miles in 24-hours.

Subsequently, more and more running events, or rather exhibition running events, were organized, all of which were money-making ventures and usually with only one participant. The term “gentlemen walkers and runners” was coined at the time to describe these athletes.

The first woman to feature in reports was Mary McMullen in July 1765, who is said to have run from Blencogo to Newcastle (about 72 miles) in a day.

2.1   SIX-DAY RACE

Following the era of the exhibition runner and pedestrianism, there was a renaissance of the 6-day race from September 4th – 9th 1980 in Woodside, CA. The winner, incidentally, was Don Choi, with a distance of 400 miles.

One month later, another 6-day race was held in Pennsauken, NJ, which featured the first-ever official performance by a female runner. Sabins Snow took second place overall with 345 miles, behind the above-mentioned Don Choi (397 miles).

In 1982, four 6-day races were held around the world, including two in Europe, in La Rochelle (France) and Nottingham (England). The best results were achieved in Nottingham, where Tom O’Reilly completed an outstanding 576.45 miles, in front of the second overall finisher and best woman, Margaret Goodwin, with an equally world class 514 miles.

In 1984, the Greek Yiannis Kouros was first to break the 1,000 km (621.37 miles) barrier in New York, with 1,023.54 km (636 miles). He is still holder of the world’s best 6-day race performance with a distance of 1,038.83 km (645 miles) set in Colac, Australia on November 22, 2005.

The women’s best 6-day race performance is 550 miles, set by New Zealander Sandra Barwick in Campbelltown, New Zealand in 1990.

In 2010, there were a total of eight 6-day races held worldwide, which were often combined with other races in order to finance the now very expensive chip measuring technology. As well as longer races in which 6-day races can be included (e.g., 10 days, 1000 km, 1,000 miles or even 3,100 miles), the shorter distances of 6, 12, 24, 48 and 72 hours are commonly included in the 6-day races. These performances are usually also recognized as split performances and included as such in the respective ranking lists of the IAU and the respective national ranking lists of the country/ies.

2.2   24-HOUR RACE

The first recorded performance over 24-hours was attributed to Edward Weston who covered 112 miles in a time of 23h 44 mins. Billy Howens covered more than 200 km in 24-hours between February 22, and 23, 1878 in London, England.

In 1958, Wally Hayward broke the 250 km barrier, achieving 256.4 km.

Since 1997, Yiannis Kouros of Greece has held the absolute world’s best 24-hour performance with 189 miles, set on May 4 – 5, 1997 in Adelaide, Australia.

The absolute world’s best women’s 24-hour race performance is credited to Mami Kudo of Japan, who ran 158.09 miles December 12 – 13 in Taipei.

In 1979 Germany, Fritz Marquardt who in was the first individual runner to complete what was intended since 1970 to be a 24-hour team relay race. He went to the start saying that he was a “one-man relay.”

From then on, individual runners were also allowed to enter relay races and in Germany also, a 24-hour race scene developed. In the neighboring Netherlands, a 24-hour race used to be held in Apeldoorn for individual runners from 1984 until 2007.

Development at the US Championships has been patchy and unfortunately the results list is not available for every single year (see Table 1). However, it is hoped that the development will be positive here. Since such famous trail runners as Jurek and Karnazes have made very successful attempts over this distance, it could definitely be of interest to other runners.

The US record over 24-hours is held by Scott Jurek with 165.7 miles, set in Brive (France) in 2010. The US women’s record holder is Connie Garder, who ran 145.26 miles in Grapevine, Texas, in 2007.

On the international scene, 24-hour race championships have been held since 1992, under the aegis of the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU). It had been staged until 2010 as the World and European Challenge, but since 2011 it is officially called a World Championship. This was officially ratified by the IAAF and the WMA, which can be seen as the official recognition of the distance.

Table 3: World Champions

All statistics were obtained from the statistics database of the German Athletics Association at:...