Running's Strangest Tales

THE SWINGING GREEKS

GREECE, 720BC

Ever since Homo erectus decided to think outside the box nearly two million years ago, abandoning the traditional all-fours approach to perambulation and standing proud on two legs, men and women throughout the millennia have been running.

Back in the prehistoric day, running was no more than a perfunctory business, a way to escape the clutches of an irate sabre-toothed tiger perhaps, or to hasten back to the family cave after realising you’d accidentally left the fire on.

The concept of running for pleasure rather than necessity came much later in mankind’s story and it is with some authority the Ancient Greeks can claim to have transformed athletic pumping of the legs into both a competitive event and a leisure activity with the advent of the Olympic Games. Suddenly running was no longer merely a means of rapidly getting from A to B, it was a spectator sport.

The first Olympics were held in 776BC but it was at the Games 56 years later that the history of running took its first bizarre turn when a Greek athlete by the name of Orsippus from Megara entered the stadion, a race estimated to be held over a distance of 190m (207¾ yards) and, like its modern 100m descendant, very much the blue ribbon event of proceedings.

Orsippus was nothing if not an innovator, and in a first for the Games, decided to ditch his clothes and run in the stadion starkers. In the buff. Completely naked.

It was a bold move. There are of course obvious aerodynamic advantages to be had from disrobing but it’s a moot point whether they would be negated by the increased, ahem, ‘downstairs bounce’ that inevitably resulted. There was though evidently method in Orsippus’ madness and he romped home in first place.

‘My own opinion is that at Olympia he intentionally let the girdle slip off him,’ argued the writer Pausanias in his book Description of Greece, ‘realizing that a naked man can run more easily than one girt.’

As with much ancient history however there is controversy when it comes to Orsippus’ claim to be the first naked Olympic champion and others have named a chap called Acanthus of Sparta as the Games’ original competitive streaker.

Acanthus competed at the same Olympics as Orsippus in the diaulos (approximately 400m) and dolichos (roughly 4,800m) events and if we are to believe the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus and his tome Roman Antiquities, he’s our man.

‘After the chariots came the competitors … gymnoi [naked] for the rest of their bodies but with their genitals covered,’ he wrote. ‘This custom was still observed in my time in Rome … It is now ended in Greece, and the Spartans ended it. The person who first removed his clothing and ran gymnos was Acanthus … Before that time all the Greeks considered it shameful to appear in the games with their bodies entirely gymna.’

We’ll probably never know definitively which of the two got their kit off first but we can say the 720BC Games were the least inhibited in Olympic history.

Incidentally, the Greek word stadion has given us the modern word ‘stadium’, so while most of us have not inherited their penchant for nude running, we are indebted to them for that particular etymological legacy.

WAR GAMES

GREECE, 520BC

The Greeks were a fickle bunch when it came to their athletics. We have just explored the origins of naked running at the Olympics in the previous entry and now we shall delve into how, just 200 years later, they underwent a weighty volte-face and decided to have competitors at the Games gallivanting around and about the stadium in full body armour.

The year is 520BC, it’s the sixty-fifth instalment of the Olympics, and for the first time the Games witnesses an event called the hoplitodromos (rough English translation, ‘race of soldiers’), in which entrants dashed along a course measuring between 350 and 400m (383–437 yards), kitted out in the helmet, bronze-covered wooden shield and metal shin guards which Greek infantrymen commonly wore in battle. Racers were spared having to strap on the cuirass – the soldier’s metal breastplate – but nonetheless the whole kit was estimated to weigh in at around 50lb (22.7kg). It’s like asking Usain Bolt to sprint clutching a microwave.

In the interests of historical accuracy it is important to point out competitors were still starkers aside from all the armour but it does all rather beg the question what was the point of clanking around the course, if you’ll excuse the mixed military analogy, in full metal jacket?

The answer can be found 30 years earlier when a Persian army invaded Greece. The impertinent Persians had massed ranks of rather deadly archers but the Greek infantry equipped themselves with distinction against the aerial bombardment, charging the lines at full speed to take the enemy by surprise.

The introduction of the hoplitodromos to the Olympics was both a celebration of their exploits and an on-going exercise for possible future skirmishes.

‘The run in armour was introduced as an athletic competition and, at the same time, to train hoplites for running in armour,’ wrote historian Nick Sekunda in Marathon 490BC: The First Persian Invasion of Greece. ‘It seems the hoplite [soldier] would not be expected to run further than this distance [360m] and that they began their charge at the run two stades away from the Persian line. This is precisely when … they would have come within effective range of the Persian Army.’

Or as third-century Greek writer Philostratus pithily put it, athletes ‘regarded war as training for gymnastics, and gymnastics as training for war’.

The problem was the hoplitodromos was not always the edifying sight the Games organisers hoped for as the runners dropped their shields in the hustle and bustle of a race and often tumbled over. Things were further complicated by the fact there was a hairpin turn on the Olympic course and competitors had to grab hold of a wooden post – the kampter – to help them negotiate the tight bend while still clutching their shields. If they all arrived at the kampter at the same time, it was bedlam.

The modern equivalent of the hoplitodromos would be the policeman’s 100m dash in full riot gear, an impromptu event staged whenever rumours of free Krispy Kremes spread through the ranks.

THE MADNESS OF THE MARATHON MONKS

JAPAN, 788AD

The pursuit of spiritual and religious enlightenment and the search for the meaning of life is a frustratingly elusive business. While countless charlatans have claimed to have unlocked the secret (which they’re more than happy to share subject to full disclosure of your mother’s maiden name and your credit card details), the general consensus is that a Zen-like higher state of consciousness is jolly hard to achieve.

Many runners of course experience a certain sense of clarity and calmness, albeit not exactly a religious epiphany, while clocking up the miles, but they really can’t hold a torch to the famed Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei, who go to extraordinary lengths – not to mention distances – in their quest to attain enlightenment.

Ours monks are Tendai Buddhists in Japan, and ever since their Enryaku-ji monastery was founded on Mount Hiei, in the mountains north of Kyoto back in 788, they’ve been embarking on a gruelling athletic rite of passage, which begs as many questions about their sanity as it reveals the depths of their religious devotion.

It takes seven years to complete their Herculean task, known as the kaihogyo, and requires the monks to complete the equivalent of 1,000 marathons in 1,000 days. They walk or run at night, stopping at a series of temples and shrines along the way to pray and recite ritual chants, and there’s not a water station or St John Ambulance in sight.

To further up the ante, the monks must complete their task wearing straw sandals, rather than a nice comfy pair of Nike Airs and, at the end of the whole thing, they’re required to retire to a darkened room for nine days without food, water or sleep and contemplate what they have learned. And their multiple blisters.

It is, we can all agree, a beast of a challenge and between 1885 and 2015 a mere 46 monks successfully completed the gruelling kaihogyo.

‘It is a time to meditate on life, on how you should live,’ explained one of the monks in John Stevens’ book The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei. ‘All humans are asking the question, Why are we alive? The constant movement for 1,000 days gives you lots of time to think about this, to reflect on your life. It is a type of meditation through movement.’

Those rare, exhausted few who do finish the kaihogyo become national celebrities, with the final stages of their exploits broadcast live to the country, an unsurprising addition to the infamously sadistic TV schedules in Japan, which have variously featured game show contestants being slapped in the testicles, forced to live in solitary confinement for a year or having blow darts fired at their bared buttocks. Crazy country, Japan.

THE FORGOTTEN FOOTMEN

UK, 1450s

Professional long distance runners can make a handsome living these days from their natural ability to get from A to B in the quickest time possible, but one of the first groups to earn a crust for jogging for prolonged periods were known as the running footmen, and those poor sods had it tough.

The first running footmen appeared in the mid-fifteenth century. Their job was to accompany the horse-drawn carriages transporting wealthy toffs on their journeys, clearing obstacles from the road, helping free the carriages should they become stuck, and running ahead to alert the local innkeeper that Mr and Mrs St John-Smythe would be with them shortly and would be requiring roast grouse and a nice claret for dinner.

Running footmen quickly became a status symbol – the more you employed, the posher you were, and the really big cheeses could have up to six trotting ahead of their carriages as they travelled up and down the country.

The problem was, as the years went by, the job became harder and harder. Fifteenth-century carriages rolled at a relatively modest 5mph (8km/h) due to the terrible state of the roads (council budgets for road repairs were minuscule even back then), but as the quality of the highways and byways steadily improved, the coaches got faster and faster and the later generations of unfortunate running footmen had to keep up.

By the late eighteenth century the carriages were estimated to be doing a heady 7mph (11.3km/h) and our human outriders were expected to run up to 60 miles (96.6km/h) a day, often clocking up 20 miles (32.2km) without a break. All while simultaneously bowing and scraping to the pampered passengers inside the carriage.

Unsurprisingly many running footmen simply keeled over and died from sheer exhaustion. Others shuffled off this mortal coil after three or four years’ service after contracting tuberculosis, a condition possibly brought on by consistently breathing in the dusty air created by the passage of the carriages. Those mortalities gave rise to the erroneous eighteenth-century belief that running was bad for the health.

An onerous life indeed, but to add insult to injury, their monied employers often raced the running footmen against each other for sport and entertainment. The toffs of course couldn’t resist betting on proceedings.

‘In the evening rode out to Woodstock Park, where saw a race between Groves (Duke of Wharton’s running footman) and Phillips (Diston’s),’ wrote one Sir Erasmus Phillips in his diary in 1720. ‘My namesake ran the 4 miles [6.4km] round the course in 18 min and won the race, thereby his master £1,000, the sum he and Groves started for. On this occasion there was a most prodigious concourse of people.’

As far as we know Groves and Phillips emerged from this race unscathed but it was not always the case.

‘In the eighteenth century footmen were frequently matched to race against horses and carriages,’ wrote William Shepard Walsh in A Handy Book of Curious Information. ‘One of the last recorded contests was in 1770, between a famous running man and the Duke of Marlborough, the latter wagering that in his phaeton [carriage] and four [horse] he would beat the footman in a race from London to Windsor. The poor footman worn out by his exertions and much chagrined by his defeat died, it was said, of over fatigue.’

Just to clarify, that’s 25-odd miles (40.2km) for our sadly departed footman against a top-of-the-range coach pulled by four thoroughbred horses. The poor bugger never stood a chance.

BRAWLING BO PEEPS

GERMANY, 1650s

The Germans are an innately competitive race and when it comes to car manufacturing, penalty shootouts or the precision placement of beach towels in order to claim the coveted sun loungers closest to the pool, our Teutonic cousins undeniably like to win. They may come up short in the sense of humour stakes but no one’s perfect.

This burning desire to be victorious is perfectly illustrated by the historical ‘Shepherdess Race’ held in the rural town of Markgröningen in the south-west of Germany. It’s an event which survives to this day, but back in the seventeenth century it was a rather rowdy and physical affair.

The origins of the race actually date back to the mid-fifteenth century, when the shepherds of Markgröningen began the annual tradition of legging it across a 263 yard (240m) course set out on a stubble field. To prove their manliness, they did this barefoot and the winner was crowned the Shepherd King. Many steins of beer were drained and everyone had a right knees-up.

In the 1650s the men folk finally deigned to let the women join in and the Shepherdess Race was born. The ladies of Markgröningen were delighted but it seems they took the event a touch too seriously and it frequently descended into an unseemly free-for-all.

‘Each wishes of course to win the prize, and, in endeavouring to win it, all means are considered fair,’ relates one contemporary report of the race. ‘One shoves her companion to make her fall, and will even roll upon the ground with her. Another strikes her neighbour in the side that she may thus, for a time, stop the breath of a dangerous rival.’

In fact, such was the mayhem that the town clerk had to be deployed on horseback to follow the runners, brandishing a whip with which to break up the numerous fights that invariably broke out. The fairer sex it seems were not fair at all.

The contemporary English equivalent of this German festivity was the ‘smock race’, which was a staple of country fairs the length and breadth of the land from the seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century, and while these events were not renowned for their violence, they were certainly competitive.

As the name suggests, the winner received a smock of fine linen in recognition of her athletic prowess, but from time to time there was another prize on offer in the form of a shiny new husband.

Yes, the local chaps would watch the races and keep an eye out for a potential Mrs Chap. Entry to the races was restricted to young and unwed women – and sometimes being a virgin was also a dubious requirement – and so it seems ‘smock races’ also served as a bizarre form of rural speed dating at which the menfolk would weigh up the physical attributes of the competitors.

‘Maids who wish to be wives can do no better than