Part 2 of Mike McNamara - the forgotten Australian Ultrarunner. Once again Mike McNamara disappears from history. He was eventually to wind up in New York City but he does not appear on the city census of 1925. Possibly he did try poultry farming in the Mid-West, however by 1928 he was in New York. Reputedly just before the Trans-America race was announced the failure of a partner he had backed with all his money left him close to penury. We have not managed to discover any details of McNamara’s running and walking career in Australia – neither professional nor amateur. However he must have had some experience as a runner or walker in order to contemplate entering a race which would cover the 3,423-miles from Los Angeles to New York. The suspicion must be that in Australia he did not have the time, energy or inclination to develop his running talent. Remember at the age of 24, he had joined the Australian Imperial Force and soon after been sent overseas. There had been no potential coach to spot his talent and persuade him to commit to the sport. With no one to push him, McNamara’s talent remained largely hidden until the pressure cooker of the 1928 race. The Great American Transcontinental Footrace was to be run across America from Los Angeles to New York, via Chicago, to promote the opening of Route 66. A training camp was set up at the Ascot Speedway on the eastern edge of Los Angeles, California. Runners were required to report to camp by February 12th, 1928 “for final conditioning for the race.” It was reported that there were over 400 initial entrants. Fewer than 200 reported at Ascot. Among them was Herbert Hedeman, a fellow Australian, who hand been living in one room in New York with his wife and five children. When the Official Program was printed there were 249 entrants listed. On March 4, 1928, when the race started, there were 199 runners who actually crossed the starting line. The runners were subjected to a strict training schedule that started at 6 a.m. After breakfast they ran 25 to 50 miles to prepare for the promised 40 to 75 miles a day. Lunch was served at noon and the afternoon was also devoted to more training. Dinner was served at 6 p.m. and the runners were allowed to relax and have their injuries treated before lights out at 9 p.m. The official program called the arrangements for feeding the runners a “traveling cafeteria deluxe. They were promised eggs, cereal, toast and fruit for breakfast and “soup, salad, roast or boiled meat, several vegetables, both cooked and raw, a dessert and all the milk, tea and coffee desired” for dinner. Harry Sheare, runner #123, told the newspaper: “Pyle pulled the best one three weeks before we started. He notified all runners that they must assemble in Ascot Park, Los Angeles, to train and then for three weeks charged each man 50 cents per night for bed and 50 cents for each meal.” The race started at Ascot Speedway in Los Angeles and finished in Madison Square Garden in New York City. 199 runners left Los Angeles, California on March 4th, 1928 at 3:30 p.m. 55 runners finished on May 26th, 1928. Only men were allowed to enter the race. The race took 84 days to run from coast to coast. The Bunion Derby followed Route 66 from Los Angeles to Chicago. From Chicago to New York City the race ran wherever the promoter, C.C. Pyle, could get the town to pay a fee. Dr. K.H. Begg, a prominent medical expert, predicted that the race would take five to ten years off the runners’ lives. The runners ran an average of 40 miles a day, nearly the equivalent of two marathons. The shortest distance they ran was the first day, 17 miles from Ascot Speedway in Los Angeles to Puente, California. The longest distance was 74.6 miles from Waverly, New York to Deposit, New York, the 79th day. The race ran from California through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. The race covered a total of 3,423.3 miles (5505 km). During the race itself, the runners’ times were clocked daily. All runners started at the same time and they had to reach a designated checkpoint. As each runner crossed the checkpoint, his time was logged. Each day’s time was added to the last. The fastest cumulative time would win the race. In the 1920’s amateur athletes represented the purity of the sport, and the Olympic games exemplified this spirit. The runners who entered the Transcontinental Foot Race had little concern for their amateur standing, considering the chance to win $25,000 well worth the loss of their amateur status. To put things in perspective, the Ford Motor Company was paying factory workers $1,200 per year at the time. The winner’s prize thus represented 20 years wages. The runners ranged in age from 16 to 63 and came from all over the world. Some of the runners left jobs to run the race; others ran just to be able to say they had done so, but for the most part the runners were men who had nothing to lose. The early leaders who pushed the pace were soon forced to retire. The more cautious had to cope with the heat, the burning sands of the Mojave Desert, with few drinks available from the race. Those with trainers accompanying them were at an advantage. In his book on the Pyle races, Harry Berry recorded that “It was not hard to tell if a man has taken part in the 1928 race. A look at his right shoulder and ear, was normally sufficient. Running from West to East, the sun beat down on that one side. It blistered exposed skin within the day. These burst and became sores, and were enlarged, leaving permanent scars.” From desert the route moved in to Arizona and the Rocky Mountains. The road climbed from an altitude of 2,000 to 5,000 feet in just two days. The 52 mile stage into Peach Springs AZ on the eleventh day marked a crisis point for many of the runners. Until that point runners who did not complete the day’s stage were allowed to go back the next day to where they had stopped and then carry on. Now runners who failed to reach the checkpoint by midnight were disqualified. Many runners withdrew at that point, reducing the field to one half the original numbers. McNamara was among that number “unable to continue”. His lack of long term training meant that he had never been in contention at any point, he had struggled to survive. But the hard work he had put in would show dividends later. At the finish Pyle did not have the money to pay the promised prize money. Fortunately the boxing promoter, Tex Rickard advanced Pyle $40,000 and the millionaire father of one of the runner, Harry Gunn, made up the balance. At the finish of the 1928 race, the now professional runners looked around to find some means of making a livelihood. Tex Rickard sought to recover his money by putting on a 26 hour team race. There were forty runners, of whom sixteen completed the race. Among them was a team of Mike McNamara and Alfred Middlestate. They finished out of the money in 13th place. The two Australian veterans of the 1928 race, McNamara and Herb Hedemann, decided to pool their resources and built their own motorised caravan. Their financial circumstances did not allow for any luxuries. However I suspect that the partnership between the two Australians also benefited McNamara as a runner. Hedemann was a vastly experienced professional runner who had won the world mile title, beating Hans Holmer, in 1913. In 1924 Herb Hedemann had written to an Australian newspaper, from South Africa where he was then living, stating “I claim to be the best coach of an athlete, especially flat running… I can guarantee my ability, as can both Natal and Transvaal Athletic bodies, for whom I have done service” and claimed “thirty years study, experience, and knowledge of pedestrianism”. Arguably McNamara was getting more than a partner, he was getting a very experienced coach. However he would benefit not just from Herb Hedemann’s advice, to a considerable degree the 1928 and 1929 Trans-America races were a university for distance training. Not only was there the like of Willi Kolehmainen, who had helped guide his brother Hannes to Olympic glory, there were numerous other Finns and Swedes, then among the most successful distance runners in the world. Allied to those was the like of Olympians Estonian Juri Lossman, American August Fager, Canadian Philip Granville and of course, Arthur Newton. Not surprisingly Newton’s partner Pete Gavuzzi became a successful coach in the 1930s. The evenings after a long stage would have meant long discussions about the one thing they all had in common – long distance running. Ideas and experiences would studied and dissected; the less experienced runners eager to gain an edge which might bring financial success in the professional races. Up until the 1929 Trans-America race McNamara had not been a major force as a distance runner. He needed the high mileage of the two Pyle races to get himself into shape. The partnership with Hedemann plus the unrelenting hard daily mileage of the 1929 race made him a great runner. Obviously as a veteran of the 1928 race in preparation for the 1929 race he had trained hard, simulating the daily mileage that would face him, but it was more likely the 78 days of racing distances from 22 to 82 miles, across all kinds of terrain and weather conditions, built him into the strong, versatile distance runner that we later see. Pete Gavuzzi was later to tell me “The first race was an amateur event. The second was professional.” The Australian pairing were much more in evidence in the second race. Hedemann won the 5th stage of 37 miles from Wilmington to Havre de Grace in 4:44:45 to lead the race on cumulative time. McNamara made a more cautious start but by the 16th day he was lying in 8th place, one ahead of Hedemann. They were to stay in these positions for stage after stage, with McNamara moving up to 7th by Day 40 with Hedemann in 9th. The two men seldom won a stage, but were solid and consistent. A good day was on the 56th stage when Guisto Umek won the 34.4 miles from Van Horn to Sierra Blanca with Hedemann and McNamara in joint third in 4:58:10. Hedemann pushed harder over the next ten days and moved up to 8th, but was still around 10 hours behind McNamara. They were to finish in those positions. McNamara in 7th and in the money, with an elapsed time of 627:45:28 and Hedemann in 8th in 631:23:48. The expected prize money of $US 2,000 and $US 1,750 respectively, never materialised. With no likelihood of another trans-continental race forthcoming after Pyle’s financial disaster in 1929, the `Bunioneers’, as they had been called, had to seek other avenues of endeavour. They quickly formed an information network, primarily in North America, keeping each other advised of potential races in which they might make some money. In the meantime most of them drifted back to their old occupations. In July 1929 a two man team 6 Day race was arranged at the Ascot Speedway Stadium, Los Angeles. The aim was to surpass the mark made by the French team of Orphee and Cabot set in 1909 at the Madison Square Gardens. Johnny Salo and Sammy Richman emerged as the winners, with 749.5 miles, ahead of George Rehayn and Niels Nielson with 642.5 miles. The runners each received $5, less than a cent a mile. Herb Hedemann ran with another Pyle professional, Pat Harrison. They finished with 424 miles. That may have been Hedemann’s last race; he had a wife and five children to support. He appears to have made his way back to New York and later worked from a real estate broker. McNamara was to stick with the professional running. Later that year two man teams were pitted against teams of horses in another 6 Day race, this time indoors in Philadelphia. The runners were to run alternately four hours a piece, as were the horses. The runners set off at seven miles an hour, the horses, who were on a track outside the runners, were some fifteen miles ahead at the end of the first day. By the close of the second day, the runners and the horses were on level pegging, but the horses were beginning to get restive, going around and round the small indoor track. The jockeys were finding that despite their best efforts the horses would drop into a walk for a few laps. Eventually the horses refused even to trot, and just walked around listlessly. Unknown to the spectators, new horses were then substituted, but soon they too ended up in exactly the same state, and once again had to be replaced, this time by the original horses. By this time the runners were firmly in the lead. The winners were Salo with a new partner Joie Ray, who had originally turn professional after being recruited by Tex Rickard to run in indoor marathons against Olympic marathon champion Boughera El Ouafi. Salo and Ray’s final distance was 523.3 miles, ahead of Newton and Gavuzzi on 521.25 miles, with the horses Redwing and Fleetwood third with 510.5 miles. The first two teams of runners were to receive $500 per man, but the failure of the horses had meant a greatly reduced attendance on the last two nights, and thus a reduction in the runners’ fees of 25 per cent was negotiated.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 01:22:48 +0000
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