- Joined
- Jul 20, 2002
- Messages
- 4,187
Kamikaze runner's race across America
By Marcus Warren
(Filed: 21/08/2004)
Short of a bus knocking him down, nothing can now stop a teacher from Cornwall winning the toughest sporting contest known to man.
Bob Brown, 35, is due to cross the finishing line in New York's Central Park today at the end of a run across America, a race so punishing that it calls for the strength and stamina of a superman and soles of leather instead of feet.
By the end, Mr Brown and five others who have survived the American landscape's extremes of heat, humidity and altitude will have panted and sweated their way almost 3,100 miles, all on foot - almost two marathons every day for more than two months.
"I don't consider myself mad," the race's runaway leader said with less than 80 miles to go before the finish. "I think people who lead so-called 'normal' lives are crazy because they don't chase their dreams."
The self-styled "endurance athlete" claims never to have felt healthier and not to have suffered one blister on his journey from the West to East Coasts. His most obvious sign of physical wear and tear scars his face.
"The biggest problem has been my lips," he admitted, pointing to a ring of sores around his mouth. "Once you get them burnt, there is not much you can do."
His running shoes, the fifth pair so far, seem to be falling apart but their toe sections were cut away on purpose to ensure maximum ventilation for his feet. He has worn the same socks, washed nightly, since the race began on June 12.
A headband, a gift from a fellow runner from Japan, decorated with a rising sun and the Japanese for "winner", gives him the look of a Second World War Kamikaze pilot.
But, apart from his wife, a British couple from Bordeaux who act as a support crew and his sister and brother-in-law, no one cheers him on because the race is one of the best kept secrets in the US.
No spectators line the route. There is no media coverage. And the organiser, a Briton who now lives in North Carolina, deliberately chose as the itinerary the equivalent of B roads skirting cities to keep the event low key.
"I struggled a bit today, don't know why," Mr Brown said after crossing the line. "Sorry I was late." Then he turned to his wife, Amy, and asked: "You haven't got a cold beer, have you?" She did.
Five of the original 11 starters in the race have dropped out and the lone Briton taking part has built up an invincible lead of more than 60 hours over his nearest rival.
"The body is capable of huge feats of endurance," said Alan Firth, the race's organiser. "But sometimes the body wins the incessant debate with the mind over whether to quit or not and wants out."
"I think it's his body's frame," Amy Brown said, searching for an explanation for her husband's staying power. "It must be quite different from others."
The race across the continent has been staged only seven times before and the physical toll it extracted from runners in the first two contests in the 1920s earned the competitions the nickname "bunion derbies".
The punishment inflicted on the runners' health is on display in their emaciated physiques.
Since the off from Huntington Beach, California, Mr Brown has lost one and a half stone, bringing his weight down to just under nine stone.
His efforts to replace the calories expended en route are almost as heroic as his running. At one stage he was wolfing down eight Cornish pasties a day, a gift from his main sponsor, but then ran out of supplies.
"Anything that's bad for you, that's what I eat," he said, checking off a list of jelly beans, crisps, energy bars and cereal that keep him going. He hasn't touched any fruit since the race began
"I gorge on chocolate," he said, sipping a glass of red wine on the balcony of his motel room at the end of another day. He flies home to an uncertain future, having decided to give up teaching after only two years at Stoke Climsland school.
"A person like me doesn't really fit into the education system," he said. The course has taken runners through the blistering heat of the Mojave Desert, over the Rocky Mountains and across the Great Plains.
The hardest slog was the climb up the Appalachian Mountains, Mr Brown said.
He is raising money for Chicks, a charity which provides free holidays for disadvantaged children.
www.chicks.org.uk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...21.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/08/21/ixnewstop.html
MAXIMUS OTTER
By Marcus Warren
(Filed: 21/08/2004)
Short of a bus knocking him down, nothing can now stop a teacher from Cornwall winning the toughest sporting contest known to man.
Bob Brown, 35, is due to cross the finishing line in New York's Central Park today at the end of a run across America, a race so punishing that it calls for the strength and stamina of a superman and soles of leather instead of feet.
By the end, Mr Brown and five others who have survived the American landscape's extremes of heat, humidity and altitude will have panted and sweated their way almost 3,100 miles, all on foot - almost two marathons every day for more than two months.
"I don't consider myself mad," the race's runaway leader said with less than 80 miles to go before the finish. "I think people who lead so-called 'normal' lives are crazy because they don't chase their dreams."
The self-styled "endurance athlete" claims never to have felt healthier and not to have suffered one blister on his journey from the West to East Coasts. His most obvious sign of physical wear and tear scars his face.
"The biggest problem has been my lips," he admitted, pointing to a ring of sores around his mouth. "Once you get them burnt, there is not much you can do."
His running shoes, the fifth pair so far, seem to be falling apart but their toe sections were cut away on purpose to ensure maximum ventilation for his feet. He has worn the same socks, washed nightly, since the race began on June 12.
A headband, a gift from a fellow runner from Japan, decorated with a rising sun and the Japanese for "winner", gives him the look of a Second World War Kamikaze pilot.
But, apart from his wife, a British couple from Bordeaux who act as a support crew and his sister and brother-in-law, no one cheers him on because the race is one of the best kept secrets in the US.
No spectators line the route. There is no media coverage. And the organiser, a Briton who now lives in North Carolina, deliberately chose as the itinerary the equivalent of B roads skirting cities to keep the event low key.
"I struggled a bit today, don't know why," Mr Brown said after crossing the line. "Sorry I was late." Then he turned to his wife, Amy, and asked: "You haven't got a cold beer, have you?" She did.
Five of the original 11 starters in the race have dropped out and the lone Briton taking part has built up an invincible lead of more than 60 hours over his nearest rival.
"The body is capable of huge feats of endurance," said Alan Firth, the race's organiser. "But sometimes the body wins the incessant debate with the mind over whether to quit or not and wants out."
"I think it's his body's frame," Amy Brown said, searching for an explanation for her husband's staying power. "It must be quite different from others."
The race across the continent has been staged only seven times before and the physical toll it extracted from runners in the first two contests in the 1920s earned the competitions the nickname "bunion derbies".
The punishment inflicted on the runners' health is on display in their emaciated physiques.
Since the off from Huntington Beach, California, Mr Brown has lost one and a half stone, bringing his weight down to just under nine stone.
His efforts to replace the calories expended en route are almost as heroic as his running. At one stage he was wolfing down eight Cornish pasties a day, a gift from his main sponsor, but then ran out of supplies.
"Anything that's bad for you, that's what I eat," he said, checking off a list of jelly beans, crisps, energy bars and cereal that keep him going. He hasn't touched any fruit since the race began
"I gorge on chocolate," he said, sipping a glass of red wine on the balcony of his motel room at the end of another day. He flies home to an uncertain future, having decided to give up teaching after only two years at Stoke Climsland school.
"A person like me doesn't really fit into the education system," he said. The course has taken runners through the blistering heat of the Mojave Desert, over the Rocky Mountains and across the Great Plains.
The hardest slog was the climb up the Appalachian Mountains, Mr Brown said.
He is raising money for Chicks, a charity which provides free holidays for disadvantaged children.
www.chicks.org.uk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...21.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/08/21/ixnewstop.html
MAXIMUS OTTER
