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  • Published: 15 April 2013
  • ISBN: 9780224082594
  • Imprint: Yellow Jersey
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $39.99
Categories:

Running For Their Lives

The Extraordinary Story of Britain’s Greatest Ever Distance Runners




The captivating story of the country's greatest ever endurance runners, tragically unapplauded by 1920s Britain

In 1928 two extraordinary Englishmen competed in an unprecedented event - a transcontinental road race across America that required them to run an average of 40 miles for 80 consecutive days.

Despite being separated by class, education and age, Peter Gavuzzi and Arthur Newton became close friends and formed a successful business partnership as endurance athletes. They raced in 500-mile relays, in 24-hour events, in snowshoes and against horses; and they became the stars of a craze for endurance events that swept across depression-era North America and the most famous long-distance runners in the world.

However, history has forgotten these two men, and in Running for Their Lives - in a story peopled with remarkable characters, unimaginable feats and tragic twists of fate - they only now receive the recognition they so richly deserve.

  • Published: 15 April 2013
  • ISBN: 9780224082594
  • Imprint: Yellow Jersey
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $39.99
Categories:

About the author

Mark Whitaker

Mark Whitaker is founding partner of independent radio production company Square Dog Radio. Since 2003 he has produced, written and presented more than twenty documentaries for Radio 4. He has written for The Times, Guardian, Independent, Observer, New Statesman. He studied at Oxford and Cambridge and lives with his wife and two children in the hills of West Yorkshire.

Praise for Running For Their Lives

These men were monumentally strong. They were not just sporting heroes but heroes in terms of human endeavour

Peter Radford

A timely reminder of the best that the sport can achieve

The Sunday Times

A poignant account of unrecognised achievement

Bryon Rogers, Spectator

Whitaker paints a compelling picture of a world in which the virtues of old-fashioned professionalism and decency overcome class and race barriers... engaging, surprising and...affecting

Alexander Larman, Observer

Remarkable

New Statesman

Well-researched and entertaining... Whitaker's real achievement is to resurrect for recognition the careers of two genuine British sporting heroes

Times Literary Supplement

Astonishing

Reader's Digest