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Subtitled, "The Extraordinary Story Of Britain's Greatest Ever Distance Runners". Looks at the life of Peter Gavuzzi, a long distance runner whose heyday was in 1929, when he ran 3500 miles across America in 78 days. Also examines his friend Arthur Newton, who emigrated to South Africa and ran 50 miles a day at the age of 40. Ties in with the Olympics.
Synopsis
In 1928 two extraordinary Englishmen competed in an unprecedented and fearsome event - a transcontinental road race across America that required them to run an average of 40 miles for 80 consecutive days. Set against a turbulent backdrop of 1920s South Africa, 1930s Canada, war-torn France and 1950s Britain, this title tells their story.
Book Details
Publisher:
YELLOW JERSEY PRESS
Publication Date:
05-Apr-2012
ISBN:
9780224082587
Observer review
Running for Their Lives: The Extraordinary Story of Britain's Greatest Ever Distance Runners by Mark Whitaker review
Alexander Larman the observer Sat 07 April 2012
It seems appropriate that in the Olympic year a biography should appear that commemorates great feats of athletic prowess. They don't come much more impressive than the 1928 Transcontinental Foot Race, which required its participants to run 40 miles across America daily for 80 consecutive days. The two participants Mark Whitaker follows are Arthur Newton, an intellectual-cum-farmer, and Peter Gavuzzi, a ship's steward. Neither won the race, but both had more at stake than merely winning medals.
The two men have been largely forgotten by history but Whitaker paints a compelling picture of a world in which the virtues of old-fashioned professionalism and decency overcome class and race barriers, even if both men were sometimes ostracised as professionals in a world of Oxbridge- trained amateurs. This is an engaging, surprising and, by the end, rather affecting book that becomes as much about lifelong friendship as it is about sport.