There has always been a part of us that wants to find the edge.
Long before anyone thought of running in circles for a prize, people measured a day by the sun. The old Greek messengers —> they called them day-runners —> just had to get a message through before nightfall. No stadium. No crowd. Just the road and the job.
Then, a couple of hundred years ago in Britain, it turned into a sport. They called it pedestrianism. A man would say he could walk or run for twenty-four hours, or even six days, and other men would put money on how far he would get.
Captain Barclay, a Scotsman, walked one mile every hour for a thousand hours. Ten thousand people turned up over the weeks. A lot of them were not there just to admire him. They had a bet on him. That is how it was.
By the 1870s they were packing big halls in London and New York, watching men going round and round for six days and nights, while grabbing a couple of hours’ sleep on a cot beside the track.
Newspapers would print the mile totals like they were the most important numbers in the world. Some folk came because they were amazed a body could keep moving that long. Plenty more came because they had money riding on the next hundred miles. It was a proper spectacle. Then it faded. Other sports took the crowds and the halls went quiet.
But the question never really left.
How far can a man go when the sun goes down and comes up again?
In our time the race came back quieter. No bookies shouting the odds. Just a track, a clock, and people who already know what the hours cost. Since 1989 they have been holding a 24-hour track race in London most years.
This weekend it is also the British Championships. They start at noon Saturday and they are still going at noon Sunday. About fifty runners. Crews handing them a drink every few laps. No big fuss. Same old question.
Some have gone past 300 kilometres in a day. That is a long way to travel without ever leaving the same 400 metres. Looks daft to most people. “Why would you do that?” they say. Well, why does anyone keep going when the easy thing would be to sit down? There is just something in us that wants to know.
I think of Dave Shaw up our way. Monday nights he is at Argyll Park with whoever turns up — the quick ones, the slow ones, the ones who have never run before. He is not doing it to get famous. He is doing it so people get out the door. That is a good thing. And then he will go down to London this weekend and spend twenty-four hours going in circles. One is for the many. One is for the few. Both belong to the same story.
The old races were mixed up with betting and big crowds looking for a thrill. The new ones are quieter. A man is not running so someone else can win a wager. He is running to see what is in him —> and maybe to show the folk he coaches that you can keep moving when everything in you wants to stop.
Some of us are made for the changing trail. Some are made for the same oval, lap after lap. Neither is better. They just ask different things of you.
The track has not changed much in two hundred years. Neither have we. We still want to know how far we can go before we have to stop.
That is the history, as I see it.
You take it now and put your own bits in —> the Monday nights, the friend on the start line tomorrow, the miles you already know. Make it yours.