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1995 Centurion Qualifier August 5-6, 1995 Ellicott City, Maryland
Alan Price 23:55:12
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1993 Centurion Qualifier – Xenia, Ohio September 25, 1993
Ivo Majetic 18:26:24 New Centurion C48
Alan Price 21:03:07
Robert Keating 22:01:46
Dave Thorpe 23:52:16
Nial Mandal 84.0
Chuck Hunter 76.0
Ray Franks 76.0
Rich Myers 70.0
Mike Michel 63.0
1993 Centurion Qualifier August 7-8, 1995 Ellicott City, Maryland
No 100 mile entries found.
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1992 Centurion Qualifier August 2-3, 1995 Ellicott City, Maryland
No 100 Mile entries found.
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1991 Centurion Qualifier, Columbia, Missouri September 21-22, 1991
New Centurion C47 Niall Mandal
Alan Price 20:41:21
Niall Mandal 23:16:55
Chuck Hunter 90.25
Bruce Etherton ??
Robert Dolphin 75.0
Bob Chapin 66.0
Roberta Cole 62.5
Russ Keeney 54.0
Steve Pinto 53.0
Race Report
Results
Niall Mandal’s Centurion Patch from 1991. The only one I have ever seen. Very Nice.
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1989 United States Centurion Qualifier Columbia, Missouri September 30, 1989
New Centurion C44 RAY FRANKS
New Centurion C45 DAVE THORPE
New Centurion C46 VEDA ROUBIDEAUX
Alan Price 19:54:11
Dale Sutton 20:21:43
Ray Franks 22:40:19
Dave Thorpe 23:14:43
Veda Roubideaux 23:21:06
Steve Pinto 80.75
Doug Brown 77.75
Bruce Etherton 70.0
Jack Blackburn 68.0
Niall Mandal 65.5
Tim Phillips 62.0
Bob Chapin 56.25
Don Kinney 50.25
Veda Roubideaux and her race report looking back.
| I was just remembering the time I did the 100 mile and wondered if there was a record of who had done it on line and came across your site. I did the 100 mile in 1989 I am number C46. My time was 23:21:06. I don’t remember just where it was held. I went with two other guys. Dale Sutton C32, he had finished it in 1980 and again in 1989 and Dave Thorpe C45 who finished just before me. Dale was our coach and mentor. His first rule was start eating right away, if you wait until later you will get sick and be off the track throwing up. Which is what I saw happen to several people. What he had us eat starting off was a mixture of cottage cheese for protein, pineapple juice to digest the cheese and apple sauce for sugar, all mixed together. And it worked great. After that we ate different things we had brought. I was uncertain just what to bring so I brought baby food custard and that worked well. I always thought I should do a commercial for Gerbers saying, “Hey Gerbers is not just for babies I walked a 100 miles eating it”. I also brought some M&Ms, I would tell myself OK “twenty fast lapse and you get M&Ms”. As I am sure you well know this walk is half fitness and have mental desire. We had gone to I think Montana the year to try to do the race but the weather was so bad, cold, rain and horrible wind. They called it off a 5am. So we tried again in1989 and this time we had good weather. The people who were the organizers got very excited when they could see I might make it in under 24 hours as I would only be the 5th women to have done it. Every one was so supportive and encouraging. I then I made that last extra lap past the official last lap just in case they had missed one. I was of course so happy and so tired. I remember sitting down in a chair but then was not able to get up on my own. It was a great achievement I have been very proud of. |
Race report
Results
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1987 Centurion Qualifier Columbia , Missouri September 26, 1987
Alan Price 20:58:42
Chuck Hunter 22:50:21
Steve Pinto 95.25
Carl McCoun 79.5
Phil Lewis 75.5
Chris Amoroso 75.0
Bruce Etherton 70.5
Phil Jacobs 64.75
Millard Thomas 53.75
Jeff Reynolds 51.25
John McCrory 50.5
Race report & Results
Report from Ohio Race Walker
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1985 Centurion Qualifier, Columbia, Missouri September 28, 1985
DARWIN HINDMAN NEW Centurion C43
Alan Price 20:37:30
Darwin Hindman 22:52:14
Bob Davidson 93.0
Bruce Etherton 88.5
Rich Myers 87.0
Tom Kline 78.5
Phil Lewis 77.5
Steve Pinto 73.0
Rob Spier 65.0
John Wilke 63.0
Carl McCoun 62.0
Eugene Dix 55.5
Axie Hindman 52.0
Jeff Lewis 50.0
Race reports
Results
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1984 Centurion Qualifier Columbia, Missouri September 29, 1984
Alan Price 18:46:13
Bob Keating 21:42:53
Bruce Etherton 23:51:16
Tom Kline 93.0
Carl McCoun 86.5
Jack Blackburn 86.25
John Stowers 83.75
Rich Myers 79.25
Scott Demaree 79.25
Dave Garver 77.25
Bob Gragg 75.0
Don Williams 70.5
Darwin Hindman 64.75
Leonard Busen 63.5
William Taft 60.5
Craig Haugaard 55.25
Adair Andrews 50.0
John Wilke 50.0
Race Report & Results
“Aerobic Walking” by Casey Meyers
CH 9: THE UNKNOWN CHAMPIONS AND OTHER WALKERS
For all the runners, ex-runners, masochists, and out-of-shape folks who are skeptical about whether walking presents enough of a challenge to fool with, let me introduce you to America’s premier test of endurance, the National 100-Mile Walking Championship held in late September or early October at Columbia, Missouri. It is sponsored by the Columbia Track Club and is an athletic event unique in all of the United States.
Those who complete the hundred-mile event conducted under The Athletics Congress racewalking rules in less than twenty-four hours join the most exclusive group of endurance athletes in the United States – the Centurions. So far, since the annual hundred-mile race was revived in 1967, only thirtynine walkers have become Centurions, including four women. Actually, if we go back to 1878, there are three more Centurions, making the total forty-two in the whole United States over a period of 108 years. In 1976, the Kansas City Star did a feature story on the Columbia hundred-miler and the Centurions. The Star reported that the first Centurion race was a competitive racewalking event held in New York City in May 1878. The goal in that race was to see how many miles professionals could walk in thirty-six hours and amateurs in twenty-four hours. Fourteen professionals set out at 11:00 A.M., followed by twenty amateurs at 11:00 P.M. Since the professionals were walking for money, they were not included in the list of Centurions. Three amateurs, J. Schmidt, M. J. Ennis and J. B. Gillie, became America’s first official Centurions.
The New York Times reported that Ennis had worked a full day at a Harlem foundry. He returned home at 6:00 P.M., washed up, and ate supper. Although he had no training and had never walked in a race before, he went down to the track for the 11:00 P.M. amateur start and walked 103 miles in 23 hours 13 minutes and 56 seconds. J. B. Gillie, according to the Times, was a “very tall, very thin young man whose legs resembled two matches stuck in the end of a lead pencil.” Nevertheless, he was the top amateur in the hundred-mile race, with a time of 21 hours and 42 seconds. The race was not held again until it was revived by the Columbia Track Club eighty-nine years later in 1967. It has been an annual event through 1985. At the conclusion of the 1985 race, it was decided to hold it every other year because of the small number of entries. It takes thirty people to conduct the race and there were only twenty-three starters each year in 1984 and 1985.
The “100” is a severe test of mental and physical endurance that starts at 1:00 P.M. on Saturday, continues through the night, and concludes twenty-four hours later on Sunday. It is held at Hickman Field, the track and football stadium for Hickman High School in Columbia. One hundred miles is 402.3 laps around the track. Perhaps as this country wakes up to the superb fitness exercise of aerobic walking and the challenging sport of racewalking, the number of Centurions will grow. The average age of the hardiest Centurion walkers may prove that walking is the exercise for the over-forty generation. Of the twenty-three entrants in 1984, for example, more than half the starters were over forty. Twice as many were over fifty as were under thirty. The first one to drop out after 122 laps was a seventeen-year-old boy. The old-timers were still going.
In its first year, 1967, a quiet sixty-year-old lumberman from Kalispell, Montana, named Larry O’Neil came to Columbia and walked the “100” in 19 hours 24 minutes and 34 seconds. This was an American outdoor record for the distance that stood for eleven years. O’Neil averaged a mile every 11.6 minutes. They grow them tough in Montana, because O’Neil completed six “100”s. The last was ten years later at the age of seventy, in 21 hours 55 minutes and 23 seconds. That was averaging just over 13 minutes per mile. At seventy, O’Neil slowed down a little, but how many people can walk even one mile at a 13-minute pace, let alone a hundred miles?
In 1971, a cloudburst left three inches of water on the track, and the event was moved to an indoor track. O’Neil’s outdoor record would have surely fallen that year if it hadn’t rained. Our 50K Olympic medalist, twenty-eight-year-old Larry Young, who was at his prime and preparing for the 1972 Olympics at Munich, entered the race. He set an American indoor record of 18 hours 7 minutes and 12 seconds that still stands. O’Neil’s outdoor record remained intact. Young said he had never experienced any physical challenge equal to the “100” in his entire racewalking career. Over such an extended period of time, it requires enormous mental concentration and courage to force burning shins and throbbing muscles to keep moving in spite of the pain.
It is interesting to note that of the thirty-nine Centurions since 1967, more than half, twenty-three of them, were over forty when they qualified for this exclusive club. So far only six people under the age of thirty are Centurions. People come to the “100” from all over the United States, but the number of people who race is small, and the number who finish is even smaller. Only a handful of friends, husbands, wives, sweethearts, and sympathizers come to watch. Why do people compete in this form of self-inflicted physical torture? The answers are pretty much the standard kind you get at any endurance event: “Because I’ve done everything else,” “Just because it’s there,” and “Thousands of people finish marathons, but only a few finish the ‘100,’” are some of the typical comments from the hundred-mile participants. Some have won races at various distances against other people and now just want to test themselves against the distance and the clock. As reported in the Kansas City Star, such was the case of thirty-seven-year-old Shaul Ladany of Tel Aviv, Israel. In 1973, Ladany, an Israeli reserve officer, happened to be in New York. He had won races at most other distances. He flew out to Columbia and walked the “100” in near record time of 19 hours 38 minutes and 26 seconds. He was just a little more than 13 minutes over Larry O’Neil’s record. Ladany became the seventh modern-day Centurion on October 7. He barely finished the race in time to catch a jet for Tel Aviv and the October war.
The most durable of all the Centurions over forty is Leonard Busen of St. Louis, who had beaten the “100” a dozen times. The first woman Centurion was Elsie McGarvey of Kalispell, Montana, at the age of forty-nine in 1978. She repeated two years later at the tender age of fifty-one. They grow men and women tough in Kalispell, Montana. “Life begins at forty” certainly seems to apply to the walkers.
The man who finally broke Larry O’Neil’s record is Alan Price of Washington, D.C., who did it in 1978 at the age of thirty-one in his very first attempt. Price has won the Columbia hundred-miler every year since, and in 1984 broke his own 1978 record and set a new American outdoor hundred-mile record that still stands at 18 hours 46 minutes and 13 seconds. He’s the best hundred-miler in this country by a wide margin. The current official hundred-mile world record is held by Hector Neilson of Britain and was set in Walton, England, on October 14 and 15, 1960, in the impressive time of 17 hours 18 minutes 51 seconds. In an interview with the Columbia Daily Tribune after his 1984 record walk, Price told how he first came to Columbia in 1978. He said, “I heard about the race in Columbia in an ad in Runners’ World along with a feature on one of the guys who won a lot. They had some times in there, and I said, ‘I can do this.’ So I told everyone in D.C. I was going to Columbia and set a record. I had a hard time getting the money for the trip, but I always knew I would go. I was kind of the dark horse figuratively and literally.”
Alan Price was referring to his race by that remark. He is a black in a sport that does not seem to attract blacks. Black racewalkers are about as common as black hockey goalies. He had never walked in a race longer than 50 miles prior to 1978. Price was actually a “closet walker,” and he said he felt funny practicing in the daylight, so he would go to the track at Bennicker Junior High in Washington, D.C., after dark and practice in the pitch black. Here’s a case where the Russian athletic understanding is clearly ahead of ours. Racewalkers don’t have to hide or be subjected to senseless ridicule in Russia. Alan Price is some tough athlete and has reason to be proud of his accomplishments. He told the Columbia reporter, “People who don’t do this think it’s easy. That’s because they haven’t tried it yet.” Price enjoys telling about entering a 100-mile race in San Diego in 1982 where the promoters wanted a “name athlete” for a big draw. They got Don Choi, who held the American distance record for a six-day run of more than 450 miles. The race promoters figured walking a 100-miler would be a piece of cake for him. Price blew him away in 19 hours 35 minutes and 44 seconds. “Well, he finished it,” Price said, “but I’m telling you, he was hurting pretty bad. I asked him which he thought was harder, a sixday run or a hundred-mile walk. He said, ‘No doubt about it, a hundred-miler!’ Alan Price liked having the best in another sport invade his turf and come away shaking his head. Alan Price has completed fifteen hundred-milers through 1984, more than any other person in the United States.
In 1984, at the age of thirty-seven, Price, who is only five feet seven inches tall, weighed 138 pounds at the start of his record-setting performance. He weighed 127 pounds at the finish. During the race, he consumed a quarter of a large watermelon, half a gallon of apple juice, and a pint of water. Alan Price has not worked steadily since 1979. There are no fat endorsement contracts from shoe companies and clothing manufacturers for racewalkers; consequently, they have to cut corners wherever possible to save money. Price set his American record wearing a $1.90 pair of discounted Foot Locker shoes he picked out of a pile on a clearance sale table. Such is the humble life of a racewalker in the United States—even a champion.
The Boston Marathon has the tradition; the New York and Chicago marathons have the big money; but the thirty-nine men and women Centurions have exclusivity. It takes a special kind of person to do the “100.” For those who think there aren’t any serious athletic challenges for the exercise walkers, join the Centurions—if you can. People just starting to walk can go as far and as fast as their determination and discipline will take them. By slowly working yourself into shape and picking up your speed to the aerobic level, you will have mastered the perfect fitness exercise, which you can do the rest of your life. And if the competitive bug bites you, there are races all over the country, and the granddaddy of them all, the hundred miler, awaits you at Columbia, Missouri.
Jack Mortland estimates there are over a thousand Centurions in England. Other European countries also have larger numbers of people who do the “100.” The soft, sedentary over-forty generation and the young people in the United States have yet to discover the ultimate challenge. After you have gotten your twenty-year-old physique and energy level back by eating smart and walking aerobically, you may feel so fit and feisty that competition racewalking or becoming a Centurion is just the challenge you need. The real satisfaction, however, comes from feeling so good that nothing seems out of reach. How long has it been since you’ve felt that way?
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1983 United States Centurion Qualifier Columbia, Missouri September 17, 1983
New Centurion C42 F CHRISTINE CUSTER
Alan Price 22:36:54
Christine Custer 23:50:49
Bob Gragg 88.0
Jack Blackburn 87.5
Tom Kline 81.0
Rich Myers 81.0
Bob Chapin 79.25
David Garver 76.25
Phil Jacobs 66.0
Bob Dolphin 65.25
Bill Hillman 63.5
Neal Picken 62.0
Ray Chapin 50.5
Darwin Hindman 50.0
Nate Blackburn 50.0
Rob Spier 50.0
Renea Nash 50.0
Race Report & Results
Race report by Centurion Leonard Busen
Very nice write up in the Ohio Race Walker about the 1983 Race.
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1982 United States Centurion Qualifier San Diego, California. November 20 -21, 1982
New Centurion C38 JOHN KELLY
New Centurion C39 BEVERLY LaVECK
New Centurion C40 TOM DOOLEY
New Centurion C41 LIZ KEMP
Bob Keating 19:19:31
Alan Price 19:35:44
John Kelly 19:42:11
Bev LaVeck 21:42:14
Tom Dooley 22:30:31
Dale Sutton 23:36:55
Liz Kemp 23:50:50
Kathy O’Classen 98.75
Don Choi 93.0
Chuck Hunter 92.0
Liz Kemp
Race Report
Tribute to Centurion Bev LaVeck
Report by Centurion Liz Kemp
Newsprint of John Kelly’s Centurion walk in England 1965.
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1982 Centurion Qualifier Columbia, Missouri September 25, 1982
New Centurion C36 BRUCE ETHERTON
New Centurion C37 PHIL SIGLER
Phil Sigler
Alan Price 19:43:51
Bob Chapin 20:23:09
Jack Blackburn 22:03:05
Leonard Busen 23:17:44
Bruce Etherton 23:25:46
Phil Sigler 23:54:00
Chris Knotts 78.75
Bob Gragg 75.0
Phil Lewis 65.25
Rob Spier 65.0
Chuck Hunter 64.0
Doug Parrott 63.25
Marsha Luther 62.0
Phil Jacobs 58.25
Steve Jones 54.5
Bill Hillman 53.0
Nate Blackburn 51.25
Craig Haugaard 50.5
Ray Chapin 50.0
Benny Calvert 50.0
Race Report
Results
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1982 Centurion race Fort Meade, Maryland. August 7, 1982
Alan Price 22:26:18
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New Centurion C34 MARIO ESCOBEDO at El Cajon, California. February 28, 1981
1981 Centurion Qualifier Methuen, Massachusetts May 2-3, 1981
New Centurion C35 BOB KEATING
Mario Escobedo
Alan Price 20:09:18
Bob Keating 20:31:26
Jack Blackburn 20:50:14
Leonard Busen 22:50:59
Mario Escodedo 23:06:50
Tony Medeiros ??
George Lattarulo 80.25
Elliott Denman 61.5
Chris Knutts 50.0
Paul Hendricks 43.5
Race Reports
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1981 Centurion Qualifier Columbia, Missouri October 3, 1981
Alan Price 20:21:33
Bob Chapin 21:48:29
Leonard Busen 23:27:24
Phil Lewis 93.25
Jack Blackburn 87.25
Bruce Etherton 76.0
Mac Pullen 70.0
Joyce Withrow 64.5
William Taft 63.5
Christina Purdy 62.5
Chuck Hunter 62.5
Chris Knotts 58.0
George Lattarulo 54.25
Mark Young 54.0
Rob Spier 50.0
Tim Blackburn 50.0
Mike Fietsam 50.0
Race Reports
Results
Pre race tribute to Larry O’Neil Poem by Centurion Bob Gragg
Eulogy by Centurion Elsie McGarvey
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1980 Centurion Qualifier in San Diego, California November 1, 1980
New Centurion C31 JONATHAN REM
New Centurion C32 DALE SUTTON
New Centurion C33 ROBERT MARSHALL
Paul Hendricks 18:48:52
Johnathan Rem 19:19:46
Allan Price 19:56:22
Dave Hugener 20:34:39
Leonard Busen 21:11:06
Dale Sutton 22:03:45
Robert Marshall 22:39:40
Elsie McGarvey 23:46:17
Race report
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1980 Centurion Qualifier Columbia, Missouri September 27, 1980
Alan Price 19:28:16
Bob Chapin 20:22:07
Leonard Busen 20:52:47
Bob Gragg 23:31:33
Rich Myers 86.0
Jeff Smith 81.0
Rob Spier 80.0
Craig Haugaard 76.5
Jack Blackburn 71.0
William Taft ??
Mac Pullen 62.75
Bruce Etherton 62.0
Phil Lewis 60.0
Dan Halterman 54.5
Ben Calvert 54.0
Chris Knotts 53.75
Race report
Results
Poem by Centurion Bob Gragg
Letter from Centurion Chuck Hunter
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1979 Centurion Qualifier at San Diego, California May 12, 1979
New Centurion C26 DAVE HUGENER
New Centurion C27 DOUG REEVES
1979 Centurion Qualifier at Columbia, Missouri September 22, 1979
New Centurion C28 CHRIS AMOROSO
New Centurion C29 GERARD HERRMAN
New Centurion C30 GEORGE LATTARULO
Alan Price 19:52:15
Bob Chapin 21:13:44
Leonard Busen 22:11:19
Chris Amoroso 22:40:01
Gerard Herrman 23:39:53
Chuck Hunter 23:13:56
Bob Gragg 23:48:42
George Lattarulo 23:50:37
Elsie McGarvey 93.0
Rich Myers 78.0
Rob Spier 75.0
Fred Rohner 71.25
Chris Knotts 65.0
Larry O’Neil 65.0
Carl McCoun 62.0
William Taft 62.0
Jack Blackburn 60.0
Sally Grimm 53.0
Jerry Brown 51.0
Craig Haugaard 50.25
Kenton Crockett 50.0
1979 Start
Photos from the 1979 Centurion race contributed by walker Craig Haugaard.
Enlarge Pre race. #17 Bob Gragg (white shirt with red shoulders), #11 Chuck Hunter (light red tank with blue shorts) #5 John Argo (red shorts with yellow tank), Centurion C6 Larry Young in support (Maroon shirt/jeans.), #20 Paul Hendricks, #13 Bob Chapin, Centurion C24 Elsie McGarvey (white shirt white shorts), Centurion C4 Larry O’Neil (white hat facing camera).
Enlarge #21 Jerry Brown, #23Alan Price, #4 Larry O’Neil, # 15 Leonard Busen, #5 John Argo, #13 Bob Chapin, #9 Carl McCoun.
Enlarge On the Left Craig Haugaard, #5 John Argo. Thank You Craig for the photos.
Race Report
Results
Race report from the Ohio Race Walker
100 Mile walk Alan Price Fort Meade, Maryland August 11, 1979
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1978 Centurion Qualifier Columbia, Missouri September 23, 1978
New Centurion C23 ALAN PRICE
New Centurion C24 ELSIE McGARVEY
New Centurion C25 ALBERT VAN DYKE
Elsie McGarvey
Larry O’Neil at the age of 70 years
Alan Price
Alan Price 18:57:01
Paul Hendricks 19:10:37
Leonard Busen 19:40:20
Bob Chapin 19:46:23
Jack Blackburn 21:13:54
Chuck Hunter 21:23:44
Rich Myers 21:44:26
Elsie McGarvey 22:52:31
Bob Gragg 23:03:42
Albert Van Dyke 23:12:56
Larry O’Neil 94.0
George Lundmark 80.0
Kathy Keller 75.0
Dale Sutton 71.0
Chris Clegg 70.25
Ray Purdy 70.0
Gerard Herrman 70.0
Randy Mimm 64.0
Rob Spier 63.0
Chris Knotts 60.0
Danny Halteman 58.25
William Taft 55.0
Bruce Etherton 54.0
Race Report
Results
Report from The Ohio Race Walker
A great write up about the First Woman United States Centurion Elsie McGarvey
Write up about Larry O’Neil.
Another story about Elsie McGarvey
Alan Price and Jack Blackburn
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1977 Centurion Qualifier Columbia, Missouri October 1, 1977
New Centurion PAUL HENDRICKS C20
New Centurion JERRY BROWN C21
New Centurion RICHARD MYERS C22
Paul Hendricks
Richard Myers
Paul Hendricks 19:45:17
Leonard Busen 20:04:46
Chuck Hunter 20:55:25
Jack Blackburn 21:18:26
Larry O’Neil 21:55:23
Jerry Brown 21:59:34
Richard Myers 22:59:36
Bob Gragg 23:07:52
Ben Knoppe 91.25
Bob Chapin 90.0
William Taft 70.0
Dale Sutton 62.0
Albert Van Dyke 58.5
Mac Pullen 58.25
Chuck Berkey 58.25
Bruce Etherton 54.25
Chris Amoroso 54.25
Ray Chapin 50.5
Race report
Results
Write up about Paul Hendricks
Story about Larry O’Neil
Story about Richard Myers
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1976 Centurion Qualifier. Columbia, Missouri September 25, 1976
New Centurion AUGIE HIRT C18
New Centurion JACK BLACKBURN C19
Augie Hirt 19:55:16
Chuck Hunter 20:05:50
Leonard Busen 21:49:21
Jack Blackburn 22:11:57
Rob Spier 22:35:01
Bob Gragg 23:37:30
John Argo 23:43:10
Bob Baker 76.0
Chris Clegg 75.0
Larry O’Neil 65.5
Ben Knoppe 63.0
William Taft 62.0
Albert Van Dyke 54.0
Randy Mimm 53.25
Jim Breitenbucher 52.0
Rufus Reed 51.0
Bob Chapin 50.0
Clair Duckman 50.0
Ray Chapin 50.0
Dale Van Dyke 50.0
Mac Pullen 50.0
Bryce Litherton 50.0
Race Report
Race Results
Centurion Bob Gragg
Centurion Leonard Busen
Augie Hirt
Long day’s journey into night
SUN UP AND SUN DOWN, THE 100-MILE CHAMPIONSHIP WALK WAS AGONIZING
Around noon, with the race still an hour away, the walkers began to arrive at the red crushed-shale track of Hickman High School in Columbia, Mo. They carried blankets and extra clothing: sweatsuits, hats, shoes. Some brought oilskin ponchos because rain had been forecast. Before getting into their socks and track shoes, sneakers or Hush Puppies, they rubbed Vaseline between their toes to prevent chafing and put moleskin on areas likely to get sore or blistered. Some taped the gap between shoe rim and sock or slipped on spats cut from old stockings to keep the small sharp shale pebbles out of their shoes.
Wives and children, the only spectators on hand, set up a couple of tents and a table to serve as a feeding station. They produced sandwiches, honey, coffee, unfizzed Coke and special energy drinks like BP (not a fuel, but Body Punch) and E.R.G. (Electrolyte Replacement Glucose, a “Gookinaid”). Six judges sat down under a canopy, ready to record and announce everybody’s quarter-mile splits.
There were only 30 walkers at the start on that last Saturday in September (as compared to 2,180 runners in this year’s Boston Marathon), and only a few of them could realistically expect to finish the race, for this was no weekend stroll. The distance was 100 miles, a staggering 400 laps around the track, to be completed within 24 hours. The contestants would have to walk at least at a 14-minutes-per-mile pace, which would allow 40 minutes for “pit stops” in the restrooms at the top of the stands, clothing changes in the cold of the night and perhaps a brief nap in a tent.
This was the 10th National 100-Mile Walking Championship, which is billed as the toughest track event in the U.S.—Race Director Joe Duncan calls it “the ultimate madness.” Columbia was a fitting site. Besides being the home of the giant killer football team of the University of Missouri, it is a sanctuary for some 20 serious race walkers. Larry Young, twice an Olympic medal winner, lives there; so does Augie Hirt, who ranks second to Young in the 50 kilometers and works as an accountant for a CPA. Hirt returned from the 50 km. World Championship in Sweden, where he finished 27th, just in time to enter this year’s 100.
It was another Columbia resident, Bill Clark, who conceived the 100-mile championship in 1966. He had been inspired by the Centurion Club of Great Britain and its 100-mile walks that had been going on since the turn of the century and by the feats of three American amateur walkers who in 1878 completed a 100-miler within 24 hours on an indoor track in New York—the country’s first centurions. But when Clark sent out invitations in 1966, nobody came.
In the fall of 1967, however, five competitors did show up, and off they went. After 64½ miles, 60-year-old Larry O’Neil was the only survivor and on his way to what still stands as the record—19:24:34—churning along at an incredible 11:40 pace. Only Larry Young has gone faster, but his record of 18:07:12 was set indoors in 1971 when the Hickman track was flooded by rain.
O’Neil, now 69, revered as the dean of the event, was back for his ninth try after having completed four of the previous eight. A trim, bright-eyed man, he trains eight miles a day in the mountains near his lumber business in Kalispell, Mont., wearing shorts whether it shines or snows. He will don a sweatsuit only when the temperature drops below zero. “I was very happy when I finished my first race,” he said, “even though my feet were covered with a bloody scab from the crushed shale on the track and all my toenails had fallen off.”
John Argo, a little 62-year-old timber feller from Mattawa, Ontario, a town of 2,600, was also back. He had entered the Columbia walk in 1970 and 1973 and the British one in 1971 and finished all three. He is also renowned for having paddled Canada’s three-day, 122-mile canoe race from Ville Marie to North Bay six times and for winning the snowshoe competition at the North Bay Winter Carnival nine years in a row. In 1970 fie traveled 43 miles on snowshoes to the Winter Carnival because its organizers, who viewed him as a special attraction, had promised to pay his way to the Columbia walk if he made it.
The pre-race favorite was Chuck Hunter, the defending champion, a 39-year-old air traffic controller from Longmont, Colo. He had entered three previous races and gone the distance each time. Built like a football player, he is often asked whether his size—6′, 180 pounds—is not a handicap. “It’s just like a Clydesdale horse against a quarter horse,” he likes to answer. “You get more work out of the former, but in shorter distances it is an advantage to be the latter.” The work Hunter does stomping along the hilly roads near his home amounts to 5,000 miles a year.
Another of the old regulars was Chris Clegg, a 59-year-old security doorman for a Los Angeles department store and still very much an Englishman though he became a U.S. citizen 22 years ago. He had walked 100-milers in England, at Columbia and in Australia. Others in the field included an executive of Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, a professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri and his colleague, a professor of political science, a vegetarian from Springfield, Mass. who is notorious for a fast shuffle that fills other walkers’ shoes with pebbles, and a prisoner from the Fordland Honor Camp—Albert Van Dyke—who is serving a sentence for second-degree murder. Van Dyke arrived with a broken jaw. “Showed off doing calisthenics,” he said.
To keep youngsters out of the race—in the past they would start it as a lark—the age limit is 19, but the most serious competitors are to be found in the over-40 bracket. “At that age,” explained the anthropology professor, Rob Spier, “man should be mature enough to handle boredom. The older competitors in this race seem better disciplined than the younger ones.” Augie Hirt, who is only 25, said, “This race is not important to us. We are race walkers, not survivors.” Three years ago Hirt entered the race, and after 57 miles he had to be carried off the track. Last year he completed 62¼ miles (100 kilometers). This year he said, “I wish I could finish it once, so that I would never have to try it again.” How do they manage to pass the time? Humming a song, perhaps, but mainly counting laps, keeping track of their splits. “After a while,” said one walker, “the mind can’t handle more than that anyway.”
The race was a jaunty affair as long as daylight lasted. The walkers chatted; one listened to the Missouri-Ohio State game on a transistor radio. Enjoying his brief freedom, Van Dyke led the first mile in 9:48, then Hunter took over. His first 25 miles were the fastest ever recorded on the track—4:26:13. But Hirt, who had set out at an 11-minute pace and had kept an eye on Hunter, caught him after 48 miles.
By that time the race was becoming a nightmare. Heavy showers had made the inside lane a muddy river and the back-stretch a lake district. The walkers were forced to weave around the deeper puddles, covering added distance each lap. On the dimly lit track Hunter and Hirt battled for the lead, and Hunter sprinted to a personal best for 50 miles. But eventually the quarter horse pulled away from the Clydesdale.
In the early-morning hours Hirt lapped Hunter with 20 miles to go, and Hunter told him, “These are going to be the hardest 20 miles of your life.”
“They were,” said Hirt later. Soon he had to shorten his stride because of a twinge in his left hamstring. “At one point,” he said, “my body was hurting in six places. It was trying to convince my head that I should stop.”
The rain had claimed its victims. O’Neil developed a blister on his left foot and had to retire after 64½ miles, 13½ hours. Clegg, the security man, stopped to rest after 75 miles and got so chilled in his wet clothes that he was unable to start again. When dawn finally came, gray and unfriendly, only seven of the 30 starters were still going for the 100-mile mark.
Hirt, now leading the vigorous Hunter by a mile, resembled a suffering Biblical figure. His eyes were half closed, his feet dragging. His wife Joan walked with him for a few laps, but he could not talk. Leonard Busen, a St. Louis newspaperman, was in third place, and next behind him was Jack Blackburn, a 40-year-old counselor at a drug-control center in Springfield, Ohio, a newcomer to the event. Blackburn had tried out for four Olympics—without success. “I think today I’m going to make the team,” he said, walking on like an arthritic old man.
Hirt won in 19:55:16, beating Hunter by 10½ minutes but missing O’Neil’s record by half an hour. “I don’t believe I did it,” he mumbled, sinking onto a bench. When Joan and a nurse led him away, he began to cry softly. Each of the seven still walking at dawn finished the 100 miles in the allotted 24 hours.
“You feel like a baby,” said Blackburn after he crossed the line. “You ache so much that you have to show it. You just can’t be manly.”
Two days later Augie Hirt was feeling much better. In fact, he was able to walk again.
More about Augie.
Write up about Chris Clegg and his International Centurion races.
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1975 Centurion Qualifier Columbia, Missouri October 4, 1975
New Centurion ROB SPIER C16
New Centurion BOB GRAGG C17
Chuck Hunter 20:26:29
Rob Spier 21:18:33
Leonard Busen 22:39:00
Bob Gragg 23:16:28
Mike Rummelhart 95.0
Ed Williams 90.0
Bob Chapin 81.0
Rufus Reed 80.0
Stan Smith 72.0
George Lundmark 71.0
Dave Leuthold 70.0
Mike Richey 63.0
Augie Hirt 62.0
Jerry Young 62.0
Ray Purdy 62.0
Randy Mimm 56.0
Jim Breitenbucher 56.0
William Taft 54.0
Larry O’Neil 51.0
Scott Browning 51.0
Linda Ontko 50.0
Results
Race Report
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1974 Centurion Qualifier Columbia, Missouri September 28, 1974
New Centurion Bob Chapin C13
New Centurion David Leuthold C14
New Centurion Leonard Busen C15
Bob Chapin 20:09:20
Chuck Hunter 21:14:17
Larry O’Neil 21:53:26
Dave Leuthold 22:31:43
Leonard Busen 23:07:27
Rob Spier 88.0
Bob Gragg 80.0
Carl McCoun 75.0
Larry Young 70.5
Joyce Schulte 62.25
Ben Knoppe 57.0
Al Schrik 54.25
Jim Breitenbucher 54.0
Randy Mimm 53.5
Lance Patterson 51.0
Tom Wilson 50.0
Paul Schuter 50.0
Greg Waid 50.0
William Taft 50.0
Steve Decker 50.0
Mary Ellen Sooley 50.0
Steve Spier 50.0
Race Report
Results
Information about the Early U.S. Centurions
The Centurion Poem by Bob Chapin C13
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1973 Centurion Qualifier Columbia, Missouri October 6, 1973
New Centurion Shaul Ladany C10
New Centurion Chuck Hunter C11
New Centurion John Markon C12
Shaul Ladany 19:38:26
Chuck Hunter 21:17:33
John Markon 21:57:40
John Argo 23:18:46
Larry O’Neil 88.0
Leonard Busen 78.5
Bob Chapin 77.0
David Leuthold 75.0
Stan Smith 75.0
Al Schrik 75.0
Bob Gragg 66.0
Augie Hirt 57.25
Jim Breitenbucher 52.25
Ben Knoppe 50.5
Carl McCoun 50.5
Charles Ward 50.5
Tom Wilson 50.25
Shaul Ladany
Race Report
Write up about Carl McCoun
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1972 Centurion Qualifier Columbia, Missouri September 16, 1972
New Centurion Ben Knoppe C8
New Centurion Carl McCoun C9
Ben Knoppe 22:15:05
Carl McCoun 23:52:08
Rob Spier 83.0
Chris Clegg 80.0
Leonard Busen 75.5
Dave Eidahl 75.25
John Markon 75.0
David Leuthold 55.0
Stan Smith 50.25
Maria DeBarthe 50.25
John Polk 50.25
Mike Shanahan 50.25
Blair Hostetler 50.25
Frank Gyulafia 50.25
Race Report
Results
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1971 Centurion Qualifier Columbia, Missouri September 18, 1971
New Centurion Larry Young C6
New Centurion Chris Clegg C7
Larry Young 18:07:12
Chris Clegg 22:46:14
David Eidahl 72.0
Bob Chapin 70.0
Paul Ide 60.0
Rob Spier 55.0
Janet Leuthold 51.5
David Leuthold 51.5
Maria Moreria 51.25
John Polk 51.0
Art Fleming 50.25
Fred Young 50.0
Rick Baer 50.0
Steve Spier 50.0
Larry O’Neil 50.0
Roman Sage 50.0
Ben Knoppe 50.0
Leonard Busen 50.0
John Leuthold 43.5
Bob Baker 37.0
Jackie Barnes 36.0
Bob Young 33.0
Race report
Race results
A GREAT account of the 1878 Centurion Walk.
Entry Information and Form for the 1971 Centurion Qualifier
Chris Clegg
Larry Young
Story about Larry O’Neil at the 50 Mile championship in 1971
John Argo becomes a British Centurion
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1970 Centurion Qualifier Columbia, Missouri September 26, 1970
New Centurion John Argo C5
Larry O’Neil 20:42:42
John Argo 23:22:50
Carl McCoun
Bob Chapin
David Leuthold
Janet Leuthold
Race Report
Results
Addition of the Three Early American Centurions
John Kelly Talks about his British Centurion
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Los Angeles indoor Track October 31, 1970
Larry O’Neil 21:49:32
Jim Hanley 56.0
Chris Clegg 54.0
Race Report
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1969 Centurion Qualifier September 20-21, 1968 Columbia, Missouri
Bob Chapin 88.0
Aubrey Anderson 85.0
Larry O’Neil 73.0
Dave Eidahl 70.0
Joel Dickinson 63.0
Ray Browne 60.75
Merelo Hill 54.0
Fred Young 50.25
Mirth Madden 35.0
Jim Kaiser 30.25
Bruce Luecke 18.75
Dr. William Taft 18.25
Joe Duncan 16.0
Race Report
Results
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Second Annual 100 Mile Walk 1968. Columbia, Missouri September 21, 1968
Larry O’Neil 100 Miles 20:51:30
Byron Overton 66.75
Bob Young 58.5
John Rose 55.0
Merle Hill 51.0
Aubrey Anderson 50.5
Bob Chapin 50.25
Bob Gragg 50.0
Bill Witman 25.0
Mirth Madden 10.0
Race report
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First Annual 100 Mile Walk 1967. Columbia, Missouri September 23, 1967.
Larry O’Neil 19:24:52 United States Centurion C4
Bob Young 69.5 Miles
Shaul Ladany 50 miles
Darrell Palmer 30 miles
Bob Reese 14 Miles
Race results & Report
Shaul Ladany
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Mote Bergman
This Man predated the formation of the United States Centurion Walkers. I am guessing that the founders of the U.S. Club never knew about this. I have no doubt that Mote Bergman did a Centurion walk. I add it here to recognise Mote on his Excellent performances.
October 1965.
Mote Walked 100 miles in 1939. On a Track.
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Centurion Race report 1878
