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Podcast: Ultrarunning History
Episode: 95: The Six-Day Race Part 4: First Six-Day Race (1875)
Description: By Davy Crockett
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P.T. Barnum featured ultrarunners (pedestrians) in 1874 who were attempting to reach 500 miles in six days, to bring paying patrons into his massive indoor Hippodrome in New York City 24-hours a day. Even though the first attempts by Edward Payson Weston and Edward Mullen came up short (see part 3), America became fascinated by these very unusual efforts of extreme endurance.
New York Life Building, where the Hippodrome once stood.
But with the failures, critics cried out that it was all just a money grab on the gullible public. It wasn’t a...