Flanagan's Run

by Tom McNab

  But it was the next Olympic marathon, in 1908, that captured the imagination of the world. Up till then the marathon had been contested over varying distances from twenty-four to twenty-six miles. In 1908, the distance was set at exactly twenty-six miles three hundred and eighty-five yards – from Windsor Castle to the newly-built White City stadium, Shepherd’s Bush, London. Legend has it that the three hundred and eighty-five yards was added so that the finish could be opposite the royal box. More likely, the extra yardage was simply the distance from the entry to the stadium round the track to the finish.

  By this time, most Olympic nations held formal trials for their marathon entrants, and 1908 was the first Olympics in which athletes were entered as national teams. Thus the runners who faced the starter on the road beside the royal lawn at Windsor were worlds away from the untrained optimists of the 1896 Games or the rabble of St Louis. Dorando Pietri (Italy) had already run the equivalent of two hours forty minutes, the Indian Tewanima (USA) was renowned over shorter distances and his countryman, John Hayes, was an outstanding endurance-athlete. Tom Longboat (Canada), whom the Americans unsuccessfully claimed to be a professional, was a brilliant distance-runner and the Englishmen Price and Lord, products of the renowned English cross-country system, were hard and durable.

  At the unsuitable time of 2.30 p.m. on a sweltering July day, fifty-six runners set off towards London. Price and Lord led an overfast opening ten miles, ahead of Hefferon (South Africa) and Dorando. Then Hefferon took the lead and by fifteen miles he had set up a three-hundred-yard lead over Lord and Dorando. By twenty miles, Hefferon had increased his lead over Dorando to over half a mile. Dorando had by now detached himself from Lord, who was himself under pressure from the

  American Hayes. However, Dorando started to gobble up the yards between himself and Hefferon, and just before they reached twenty-five miles he passed the South African and began the final run in towards Shepherd’s Bush.

  Unfortunately, the blistering heat and his effort to catch Hefferon had drained Dorando, and though he entered White City first he faced the crowd at the entrance to the stadium rubber-legged, and goggling with fatigue. He turned in the wrong direction and collapsed on to the track. There were sympathetic shouts for officials to pick him up and set Dorando in the right direction. The officials, bewildered, duly lifted the little Italian to his feet and pointed him towards the back straight. Four times more he dropped to the cinders, and each time he was lifted to his feet. He was finally half-carried across the finishing line.

  The next man to enter the stadium was the American John Hayes, who had throughout run a solid, well-paced race. American team leaders immediately submitted a protest on behalf of Hayes, which was just as soon sustained. Dorando was taken to hospital, where he lay for days in a dangerous condition. However, the Italian’s efforts were not completely in vain, as he was later, at the prompting of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, presented with a cup by Queen Alexandra in recognition of his courage.

  The Dorando marathon triggered off a professional marathon craze which was to suck Doc Cole and some of the world’s best long-distance runners into a whirligig of marathon races held over the years immediately preceding World War 1. Alas, with no central international governing body, the marathon boom faded just before the time of the Great War, leaving great runners like Cole, Longboat and Shrubb stranded in a sporting limbo.

  The future of marathon running lay in the rapidly-developing amateur movement. But Clarence Ross, fired by the 1908 Games and by his own unsuccessful attempt in the 1909 Boston marathon, had little time for amateurs. Regularly, in his nationwide chain of country newspapers, he had denounced the follies of the AAU and the American Olympic Committee, to the bewilderment of farmers and housewives from Maine to Oregon, for whom these organizations had as much significance as Glasgow Rangers Football Club. Thus, when Carl Liebnitz had informed him that the Trans-America was up for grabs Ross needed little time to consider the position. His only proviso had been that sponsorship would only be for the magic twenty-six miles three hundred and eighty-five yards into Central Park and not for the full Trans-America distance. Ross wanted only one title, “Mr Marathon”; Flanagan and his Trans-Americans were happy enough to give him that.

  8 p.m. Friday, 19 June 1931. Alexander “Doc” Cole sat on the edge of his bed in the Cranston Hotel, Denville, New Jersey, sandpapering his feet. Like many of the others he had forsaken the camp, for this final marathon stage required isolation, special preparation.

  He looked across at his bedside table, stacked high with bundles of letters tied with string: his Trans-America mail had just caught up with him. Eighty-three offers of marriage, many of them from ladies old enough to be his mother or young enough to be his daughter, some suggesting activities which would have been far beyond his capacity even in his youth. Fifty-one offers of employment, ranging from radio announcer through salesman to college track and field coach. Whatever happened, he would never again want for work.

  All day long he had been besieged by journalists. Naturally they wanted a prediction. Was he afraid of McPhail? Morgan? Perhaps Eskola or Bouin? Cole was afraid of none of them. He knew that in the end all sport was a contest against yourself. If you beat yourself you could walk away tall, no matter where you finished.

  And yet behind this philosophy, which he knew to be sound and true, Doc knew that above all he wanted to prove that he was indeed one of the greats, fit to be mentioned in the same breath as Nurmi and Kohlemainen. Like most men, his ego required not only the present but the future to be marked by his acts. As he gently rubbed his feet he could already see himself in Central Park, feel himself break the tape, hear his own interviews with press, film and radio. It would be the Big Hello, the pay-off for all the years of running on forgotten roads.

  He thought of the race ahead, a whole life to be compressed into just over two and a half hours. And yet it was no different from the races of his youth except that the ratios had changed. Then, ten hours’ training for each one of competition had always been his guideline, and it had been a demanding one. His years in the wilderness had simply changed the mathematics, and now it had to be about a hundred to one, perhaps a thousand. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  Doc knew that he had run as many miles as any man in the race, and yet behind his thoughts lay that nagging doubt that plagues every athlete, whatever his abilities. He looked down at his legs. All the running, all the exercise, had not prevented that dry, crepe-like quality of the skin, that hint of a bubbly blue varicose vein on his right calf which he had for years tried to ignore.

  He knew that there was only one strategy, to run evenly, aiming at just over six minutes a mile, peeling competitors off as he ran; for marathons offered no possibility for showy tactical bursts. And yet, no matter how evenly you ran, no matter what your experience, there was always the Wall to be breached at twenty miles. At that point, his medical friends had told him, blood-sugar started to run out and the body had to resort to other mechanisms. No matter how many marathons you had run, no matter how strong you were feeling, the Wall was always there, waiting for you.

  The Wall. He felt a bitter taste in his mouth, a hollowness in the pit of his stomach. Doc finished off his feet, put the sandpaper on the small table beside his bed and lay back on the pillow for a moment, staring at the ceiling. Sometimes, he thought, ignorance was your best friend. Most of the men he would run with tomorrow knew nothing of the Wall, and that ignorance might be their strength.

  He looked down at his wrist-watch: only 8.35 p.m. The nights before a race were always slow. He sat up and began to work again on his feet.

  His concentration was broken by a knock at the door. Doc continued to sandpaper his feet without looking up.

  “Come in,” he shouted.

  Morgan and McPhail entered and closed the door behind them. They stood sheepishly at the entrance.

  “What the hell is this?” said Doc, beckoning them in. “A staring competition? Sit down, both of you.�
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  They sat down on the edge of Doc’s bed as he continued to rub away with the sandpaper.

  “You guys worked on your feet yet?” he asked, still without looking up.

  Neither man answered.

  “C’mon,” said Doc. “What’s the matter with you two? The cat got your tongues?”

  “We’d like to thank you,” blurted out Hugh.

  “Thank me? For what?” He fished out a bottle of olive oil from his bag on the floor. “We had ourselves a deal to share, to run as a team. Ross put the knockers on that yesterday, and I can’t say I blame him. He’s putting up the dough, and for that sort of money he’s entitled to his race into Central Park.”

  He poured some oil on to his left palm, rubbed both hands together and, lifting his left foot across his right knee, started to massage it.

  “It was more than just a deal,” said Morgan. “You know that.”

  “Banana oil!” grinned Doc, lifting his right foot across his left knee and starting a similar massage. “We all had ourselves a good time. We picked up a few bucks. We’ll come out well, whatever happens. Me, I’m going to enjoy it. Hell, it’s taken me thirty years to become an overnight success.”

  “So no hard feelings?” said Hugh.

  “Hard feelings? No time for them. I got me a race on tomorrow. So have you. And there’s going to be some fancy running. Don’t forget this time we’re up against real marathon specialists. Eskola, Bouin, Mullins, Dasriaux – they all ran at the Olympics in twenty-eight, and all inside two hours forty.”

  He stopped massaging his foot and looked up at them.

  “Just what’s got into you guys? Have you forgotten everything I taught you? You are pros. Pros. Tomorrow it’s devil take the hindmost, dog eat dog. So if either of you aren’t after my balls – and each other’s – all the way into Central Park then I’ll be ashamed of you!”

  Hugh looked across at Morgan.

  “It’s just we didn’t want you to think we didn’t owe you,” said Morgan.

  “Okay, so you owe me,” said Doc. “Now stop owing me and get the hell out of here and work on your feet.”

  10 p.m. Friday, 19 June 1931. Hugh McPhail lay on his bed, face down in his pillow. He had left Morgan at the door of the bedroom which he and Kate Sheridan shared. Hugh could not understand Kate and Morgan being together the night before the marathon. It was contrary to all the tenets of the preparation, by which Scottish athletes had for over a century conditioned themselves for match-races. Still, he thought, Morgan probably knew his own business best.

  He had not seen Dixie since midday. All of his trainers in Scotland had been strict, indeed puritanical, about women before big races. They were always on about “vital bodily fluids” and such things. Even Stevie, now with Packy in a Denville speakeasy, had spoken at length in the same vein. So Hugh had left Dixie to her duties at the camp and had returned to his hotel for a massage and an early night. They would have plenty of time together after the race, win or lose.

  For Stevie, roped in to administer the massage, it was like the old days back at the mine.

  “Of course you like Doc,” he had hissed. “I do. We all do. But tomorrow afternoon it’s eyeballs out. He’s quite right. No prisoners taken.”

  “You’ve been seeing too many Hollywood pictures,” drawled Hugh sleepily.

  “Think so? Then don’t forget there’s one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the first runner past the post. Man, you could buy the Broo Park with that sort of money.”

  But Hugh did not need Stevie to excite him or harden his will. He could no more dull his competitive desires than he could change the colour of his eyes. If Doc was the better man then so be it. But Hugh had learnt a lot in the three months of the Trans-America, much of it from Cole himself, and tomorrow he was going to put it to good use. If anyone else was going to get first to Central Park he was going to have to do some hard running.

  10.30 p.m. Friday, 19 June 1931. Mike Morgan and Kate Sheridan lay naked, parallel to each other on single beds, each covered by a cool white sheet. Above them a fan whirred, stirring the heavy air. They lay still, like statues, the sweat beading on their sun-blackened arms and faces. They had not touched each other since the press conference.

  “I feel sick,” she said.

  “Me too,” replied Morgan. “So does every guy back in camp. You’re running for ten grand tomorrow. Me, I’m running for a hundred and fifty. We all feel sick. Me, I’d be worried if I didn’t.”

  Kate closed her eyes.

  “You know Glenda Farrell, the reporter from the Woman’s Home Journal? She’s going to keep me posted every five miles on my position.”

  “You got a lot of men to beat,” observed Morgan.

  “Over eight hundred,” said Kate.

  “One thing,” said Morgan.

  “Yes?”

  “Back in the Mojave, when I bopped you. I’m sorry.”

  Kate smiled. “You’ve taken a helluva long time to tell me.”

  “And another thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Tomorrow, when it’s all over – you fancy being a mother to a boy of two?”

  “That a proposal?”

  “It’s as close to one as I’m ever going to get,” said Morgan, turning on to his face.

  Kate Sheridan smiled and closed her eyes.

  “Reckon I do,” she said.

  2.15 p.m. Saturday, 20 June 1931. It was a massive white clock-face, close on eight feet in diameter, its hands already set at the starting time of 2.30 p.m. Willard Clay had arranged that it be mounted on the back of a Trans-America truck and for it to start the moment that the crack of Will Rogers’ Winchester set them on their way. Thus all the leading runners could obtain an accurate account of their speed by checking the clock and relating it to the markers which Flanagan had arranged at one-mile intervals all the way into New York.

  Ross had built temporary bleachers at the side of the fields on the road east of Denville, accommodating over two thousand spectators on each side of the road from the start to a hundred yards up the course. On the soft tar surface of the road itself eight hundred and twenty-one men and one woman now trotted, pranced, stretched and fidgeted in the humid afternoon atmosphere. To the sweating, excited spectators the Trans-Americans seemed almost like the inhabitants of some other world. Lean, sinewy, sunburnt, their vests and shorts cut as close as modesty would permit, the runners appeared to live in a private world of their own. Some wore sun-hats or caps, most wore wrist and head sweat-bands, all bore pinned cloth numbers on their upper bodies, back and front.

  Flanagan, again dressed in his favourite Tom Mix outfit, his spurs jingling, strolled among the runners, addressing each one by his first name, shaking a hand here, patting a shoulder there. His Trans-America family was on the road again, for the last time. The red-bearded McGregor and his catering staff, their normal duties over, sat at trestle-tables at the side of the road, where they were to act as race-stewards. Tomorrow, in New York, they would collect their bets.

  Another group was the many journalists, who mingled with the runners to secure last-minute stories, taking photographs of likely winners or of national or regional groups, anything that would fill the early evening editions. The leading runners flitted from one interview to the next, dutifully answering the same questions, while Kate Sheridan was followed everywhere by a swarm of journalists, radio interviewers and clicking cameramen.

  2.20 p.m. Saturday, 20 June 1931. The competitors were already beginning to gather in rows of fifteen, across the soft tarmacadam road, with the leading Trans-Americans taking up the front rows. Willard Clay and other members of Flanagan’s staff passed between the rows, making their final checks.

  About a hundred yards ahead, standing under the “start” banner, the Maxwell House Coffee Pot, the time-truck, the Trans-America van, the Press buses and a dozen support-trucks stood ready. Above them, like wheeling birds, circled news-planes and a massive silver-grey Tiffany’s airship in wh
ich the elite of Manhattan would dine from silver plate while they peered through binoculars at the runners toiling below.

  Carl Liebnitz, perspiring on the bleachers in the crowd above the start, looked down on the throng of runners and sensed the change in atmosphere. Since Los Angeles, he felt, the Trans-America had been more like a tapestry unfolding than a race, and only in the battles for stage prizes had the racing element occasionally asserted itself. True, he had sensed the subtle daily struggles between Doc, Eskola, Morgan, Bouin, McPhail and the others, but there had been none of the quality of a real fight-to-the-finish race in these daily encounters.

  Today was different. This was a marathon, the classic foot-race for the greatest prize in the history of the sport. In observing each man and in allowing himself to absorb into his pores the ambience of these pre-race moments, Carl Liebnitz experienced that same quiver of expectation that a competitive race triggers even in those who know nothing about sport.

  The swarthy Frenchman, Bouin, prowled through the waiting competitors like a hungry cat. Eskola, the lean, blonde Finn, pranced on the spot or endlessly doubled over to touch his toes. Capaldi nervously blinked and drew his hands through his black, crinkly hair. A few yards behind the starting line, on the front rank of runners, Morgan stared down the long straight road to New York as if he could already see the finishing line. Beside him, Peter Thurleigh, clad in his ragged and faded blue-fringed Oxford vest and shorts, gnawed his knuckles or swung his arms in wide circles to loosen his shoulders. A few feet away, Hugh McPhail yawned the nervous yawn of the frightened athlete, while at his side Doc Cole was for once silent, lifting one knee after the other in front of him and hugging it to his chest, eyes closed. Twenty-five rows behind him Kate Sheridan nervously pushed back for the twentieth time an imaginary strand of hair from her tanned face.