March 4, 1928. One hundred ninety-nine runners toed the starting line at C. C. Pyle’s First Annual International Transcontinental Foot Race. Eighty-four days later, fifty-five of those runners, wearier and scruffier, jogged into midtown Manhattan, completing the longest, craziest foot race in history. Find out just how crazy. Read about the motley crew of runners who entered; their trials crossing mountains and deserts, foothills and plains; the struggle to keep the race operation from going bankrupt; and the winner at the end.
More commonly called the Bunion Derby, this event anticipated the running boom in the United States by a half century. No wonder we also call it The Great American Foot Race.
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