Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we're on a sprint
Speaker 2: to retirement. You're on Stuff you should Know a marathon sprint. Yeah, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: marathon so never ending, ceaseless ultrathon marathon of all time.
Speaker 1: You know, this was another listener suggestion. I feel like
Speaker 1: those have been rolling in lately with a lot of
Speaker 1: good suggestions, and this was something I had not heard of,
Speaker 1: the story of the nineteen oh four marathon. And this
Speaker 1: comes to us from Peter Fitzgibbon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and thanks today for helping us out with this
Speaker 2: one too. Yeah, thanks all around, Peter Fitzgibbon, what a
Speaker 2: great name. Agreed, So thanks a lot, Peter, because this
Speaker 2: is a really interesting story and I hadn't heard anything
Speaker 2: about it either, But there was what's widely considered as
Speaker 2: the hardest, worst, most difficult marathon ever run. Marathon, not ultrathon.
Speaker 2: No again, I'm just specifically talking about marathons, and the
Speaker 2: mind bending part of it is it wasn't even an
Speaker 2: official marathon link. It was two miles shorter than what
Speaker 2: we consider marathons today, and this is still considered the hardest.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't because some racing genius came up with
Speaker 2: the perfect difficult marathon course. No, it was because the
Speaker 2: people involved had no idea what they were doing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and this was one of the first marathons in the
Speaker 2: modern era, in the modern Olympics, it was actually the
Speaker 2: third one.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: If you know, there was no marathon in the the
Speaker 1: og Ancient Games. I think a lot of people think
Speaker 1: that maybe there was because of the great story of
Speaker 1: how the marathon came to be, but that would happen
Speaker 1: much later. There was a gentleman named Mishe Brielle, who
Speaker 1: is a nineteenth century French linguist, and he loved Greek mythology.
Speaker 1: Happened to be good friends with the founder of the
Speaker 1: modern Olympics, a guy named Baron Pierre de Corbetin, and
Speaker 1: he went to that first IOC meeting braille did, and
Speaker 1: he said, hey, guys, we've all heard the story of
Speaker 1: the Battle of Marathon in four ninety PC, when the
Speaker 1: Greeks fought the Persians and the Greeks won, and very
Speaker 1: famously sent Fidipites the messenger to run twenty four miles
Speaker 1: back to Athens to say we won. We won, And
Speaker 1: then when he did that, immediately dropped dead, like we
Speaker 1: should commemorate that race by making people run that far
Speaker 1: in these modern Olympics.
Speaker 2: Yes, and the IOC said, I don't think anyone even
Speaker 2: invited you. Who are you? And he said the same
Speaker 2: thing again, almost very it was creepy, and they were
Speaker 2: finally like, well, a good idea is a good.
Speaker 3: Idea, he says, I'm friends with the baron.
Speaker 2: So they decided to include the Olympic marathon in the
Speaker 2: inaugural Games in Athens eighteen ninety six, the first modern Olympics,
Speaker 2: and because it was an Athens they were actually able
Speaker 2: to make a legit marathon from Marathon to Athens, just
Speaker 2: like the original version.
Speaker 3: Right yeah.
Speaker 2: Their goal was for no one to drop dead when
Speaker 2: they got back, and fortunately no one did. Into the
Speaker 2: Greek's great delight, Greek runners took the top three spots,
Speaker 2: the winner being spirit On lewis not the Greek ist
Speaker 2: last name, but his first name definitely screamed Greek.
Speaker 3: Did you say, unfortunately no one died?
Speaker 2: Or and fortunately I said, and what kind of a
Speaker 2: monster do you think?
Speaker 1: I am Hey, I knew it, but I just wanted
Speaker 1: to clear that up for people.
Speaker 2: Oh thank you, you're looking out for me.
Speaker 3: I was looking out for you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 1: So nineteen oh four was the third Olympic Games, the
Speaker 1: first one in the US, just as a little bit
Speaker 1: of a backdrop because it ties in a bit to
Speaker 1: what happened in Saint Louis. But the nineteen hundred Games
Speaker 1: in Paris were a bit of a flop because it
Speaker 1: was overshadowed by the Paris Exposition that was held at
Speaker 1: the same time, and the same thing basically happened in
Speaker 1: Saint Louis. It coincided with their World's Fair aka the
Speaker 1: Louisiana Purchase Centennial Exhibition, and it was, you know, just
Speaker 1: sort of overshadow At world's fairs were very big deals.
Speaker 1: The Olympics at the time weren't that big of a deal,
Speaker 1: in fact, because it wasn't like a big city like
Speaker 1: New York or Chicago or something. A lot of American
Speaker 1: athletes didn't even come, so we maybe didn't necessarily field
Speaker 1: our best. But one noteworthy thing was this was the
Speaker 1: first Olympics to debut all three metal colors or I
Speaker 1: Guesstal medals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, gold, silver, bronze. Right, I don't mean to be pedantic, Chuck,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry in advance, but it's my understanding that it
Speaker 2: wasn't until the seventies people called it Saint Louis. I
Speaker 2: think up to that point it was Saint Louis.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm glad you puted that out.
Speaker 2: So one of the cool things about the Saint Louis
Speaker 2: Olympics is that there was a guy named George iSER
Speaker 2: who I read a little bit about. He had a
Speaker 2: wooden leg, and this is a nineteen oh four wooden leg.
Speaker 2: He won six medals I think in one day as
Speaker 2: an American gymnast.
Speaker 3: Did he win leg throwing?
Speaker 2: Did he win?
Speaker 3: What? Leg throwing?
Speaker 2: I didn't know that that was an event. I think
Speaker 2: you're thinking of the strongest lumberjack event.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, okay, that are the Highland Games. Sure.
Speaker 3: So he won.
Speaker 1: Gymnastic medals with the wooden leg.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's amazing, pretty impressive, six of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this is actually a pretty sweet mashup of our
Speaker 2: marathon episode in our Human Zoos episode. They kind of
Speaker 2: collide here in this episode, the nineteen oh four marathon
Speaker 2: and the reason why is because in nineteen oh four,
Speaker 2: there's a guy named James E. Sullivan, and he was
Speaker 2: essentially the guy who ran amateur sports in America, and
Speaker 2: he was also on the International Olympic Committee representing America.
Speaker 2: He had a lot to do with amateur sports, right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was selected as the organizer of the nineteen oh
Speaker 2: four Games in Saint Louis. And he's also one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why there was such a thing as the
Speaker 2: human Zoo at the World's Fair that year too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He was, by all accounts a pretty xenophobic, racist kind
Speaker 1: of guy. One of the things he did later on
Speaker 1: famous I say, legendary athlete Jim Thorpe, Indigenous American Jim
Speaker 1: Thorpe at his metal strip because Sullivan made a push
Speaker 1: to do so because they found out that he played
Speaker 1: minor league baseball. Very briefly, I want to do a
Speaker 1: thing on a show on Jim Thorpe, by.
Speaker 2: The way, Yeah, I agree, we should definitely do an
Speaker 2: episode on him, because in addition to him being such
Speaker 2: an amazing athlete, he really apparently got screwed over, not
Speaker 2: just by the people taking his medals back, but by
Speaker 2: people around him he trusted who basically sold him out
Speaker 2: to cover their own hides.
Speaker 1: So back to Sullivan, before we get to his human
Speaker 1: zoo experience that he cultivated at this World's Fair, just
Speaker 1: want to also point out that he was pretty much
Speaker 1: exclusively into white men participating in sports, because not only
Speaker 1: did he have a bone to pick with Jim Thorpe,
Speaker 1: but he did not like black athletes participating. He did
Speaker 1: not like women participating. In nineteen oh eight, at the
Speaker 1: Olympics in London, they finally said, hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: we should have women in here swimming and running, and
Speaker 1: Sullivan refused to let the United States field a women's team.
Speaker 2: Right, And like you also said, the World's Fair was
Speaker 2: going on at the same time as the Olympics, and
Speaker 2: part of the World's Fair, as was profiled more closely
Speaker 2: in our Human Zoos episode, was essentially just a bunch
Speaker 2: of indigenous villages from around the world that where the
Speaker 2: actual people, like actual indigenous people from the Philippines, from Congo,
Speaker 2: from all sorts of other countries at the time, were
Speaker 2: brought to be in these living exhibits, essentially to show
Speaker 2: just how superior white America and white Europe was to
Speaker 2: these people. They were basically paid under contract to act
Speaker 2: as native and indigenous as they possibly could, and that
Speaker 2: was a big central feature of the nineteen oh four
Speaker 2: World's Fair, and being the head of the Department of
Speaker 2: Physical Culture for the World's Fair, Sullivan kind of did
Speaker 2: a mash up between the World's Fair and their human
Speaker 2: zoos and the Olympic Games that he was organizing and
Speaker 2: came up with what were called the Anthropology Games, whereas
Speaker 2: he also called them the Special Olympics.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: These were athletic contests where they would get white Americans
Speaker 1: and pit them against indigenous people people of color. In
Speaker 1: the newspaper there in Saint Louis, you know, things like
Speaker 1: barbarians meet in athletic games, and it was, you know,
Speaker 1: it was like an exhibition again of like to try
Speaker 1: and show the superiority of white athletes for this World's Fair,
Speaker 1: and isn't everyone gonna love it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they came up with the shot put, the
Speaker 2: long jump, the high jump, the mile run. And I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure we talked about this in the Humans News episode,
Speaker 2: but the indigenous people who were recruited to participate on
Speaker 2: the indigenous side essentially weren't really told the rules they
Speaker 2: were just told go do this essentially, and so of
Speaker 2: course they lost. It was super lopsided, and so I guess,
Speaker 2: just to be fair, they came up with some indigenous
Speaker 2: type events. I made scare quotes everybody, tree climbing, archery, javelin,
Speaker 2: and yes, essentially the white athletes mopped the floor with
Speaker 2: the indigenous athletes, proving to Sullivan and the rest of
Speaker 2: the white people assembled to watch this stuff that whites
Speaker 2: were inherently superior for another while longer.
Speaker 1: So Sullivan was also the guy that was in charge
Speaker 1: of designing this race, even though he probably shouldn't have
Speaker 1: been because he did a very poor job designing this course.
Speaker 1: He had a theory and it wasn't his idea, but
Speaker 1: there was a theory at the time where something called
Speaker 1: purposeful dehydration was the way forward for endurance athletes. That is,
Speaker 1: don't drink it much, don't eat much, because that'll just
Speaker 1: upset your stomach and it'll not help you in your race.
Speaker 1: So he said, hey, why don't we try this out
Speaker 1: here and we'll just put one water station close to
Speaker 1: the twelve mile mark and not let them drink any
Speaker 1: water aside from that, and we'll see how it shakes out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, from what I can tell, it was you would
Speaker 2: be disqualified if you were caught drinking water other than
Speaker 2: at that station. So yeah, I know that. So the
Speaker 2: runners involved had support teams who were basically helping them
Speaker 2: along with like, you know, keeping their spirits up or whatever,
Speaker 2: but one of the things they were absolutely forbidden from
Speaker 2: doing is giving their athlete water their runner water.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it sounds nuts purposeful dehydration, but if you stop
Speaker 2: and think about, you know, it's also not a good
Speaker 2: idea to eat a bunch of stuff and then go
Speaker 2: out and run today. I think this is people just
Speaker 2: mistakenly thought that about water at the time too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other bad idea was they started this thing at
Speaker 1: three in the afternoon in August, and Saint Louis, which
Speaker 1: is hot and humid, it was ninety degrees that late afternoon,
Speaker 1: you know, into early evening is most times the hottest
Speaker 1: part of the day. And not only that, but he said, hey,
Speaker 1: let's run it out there on the dirt road, which
Speaker 1: may have been okay if it was just these what
Speaker 1: was it, thirty two runners running, but they had a
Speaker 1: team of horses running in front of them to try
Speaker 1: and like clear the road and lead the way along
Speaker 1: with doctors and race officials and journalists. So they're just
Speaker 1: kicking up like clouds of dust that you know, reportedly
Speaker 1: you couldn't even see through at times that they're having
Speaker 1: to run through and breathe this stuff in.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, basically the whole time they're just choking on
Speaker 2: dust apparently. Also, I think that there were regular cars
Speaker 2: just using the road too at the time, so it
Speaker 2: was not it was just a poorly designed, poorly planned,
Speaker 2: poorly executed thing altogether.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There was one other thing about it too that I
Speaker 2: think most marathons would be, like what there were seven
Speaker 2: hill climbs. They range from one hundred feet to three
Speaker 2: hundred feet, and a three hundred foot hill is as
Speaker 2: tall as a twenty to thirty story building. I'm sure
Speaker 2: it's not nearly as steep as climbing up a thirty
Speaker 2: story building, but still you're walking up a substantial or
Speaker 2: running up a substantial incline to a substantial height and
Speaker 2: then back down seven times. That's on top of everything else.
Speaker 2: That just is everything that's set up this race to
Speaker 2: be just legendary. I mean, we're talking about one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty years later, you.
Speaker 3: Know, yeah, Heartbreak Kill.
Speaker 1: Just to compare, if you don't know what kind of
Speaker 1: elevation rise that is for a marathon. For the Boston Marathon,
Speaker 1: I think it's about ninety feet well, and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure of the actual you know, I think it's I
Speaker 1: think it's about a half mile for Heartbreak Hill. But
Speaker 1: again I'm not really sure how far that three hundred
Speaker 1: feet was, but it's more than three times, so it
Speaker 1: couldn't have been fun.
Speaker 2: Are you are you in a marathon? Are you going
Speaker 2: to run a marathon?
Speaker 1: Am I into marathons? I've never run more than two
Speaker 1: miles in my life.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, hey, they say the journey toward a
Speaker 2: marathon starts with a two mile run. No, no, no.
Speaker 1: My line that I always use is I don't even
Speaker 1: like to drive twenty six miles.
Speaker 2: That's a good line.
Speaker 3: Man. Not not into it.
Speaker 2: I say, we take a break and come back and
Speaker 2: start talking about some of the runners that were in
Speaker 2: this thing.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, we'll be right back. All right.
Speaker 1: So I mentioned that thirty two people participated in this
Speaker 1: race in nineteen oh four, fourteen would end up finishing
Speaker 1: the race, which is by far the fewest ever in
Speaker 1: Olympic history still to this day. But you know, we'll
Speaker 1: kind of go through some of the runners here, because
Speaker 1: some were more experienced than others, some were wackier than others.
Speaker 1: Three had won the Boston Marathon, so they were you know,
Speaker 1: there were some legit experienced marathoners in there, but there
Speaker 1: were definitely some dudes running this race that and again
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh four. Running marathons wasn't you know nowadays,
Speaker 1: if you do that kind of thing, that's your full
Speaker 1: time job basically, you know, if you're competitive, that is
Speaker 1: like at an Olympic level. But back then it was
Speaker 1: just like, hey, I do this. I run a bakery
Speaker 1: or I'm a professional clown. But I'm pretty good. You know,
Speaker 1: I can run a long way, so I'm in the Olympics.
Speaker 2: Right. There was a guy named Fred Lowers who was
Speaker 2: a brick player, and he had won a five mile
Speaker 2: race sponsored by Sullivan's Amateur Athletic Union. Goodness, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: five miles marathon. What's the difference. There's a guy named
Speaker 2: Albert Corey. He worked at Slaughterhouse in Chicago. He was
Speaker 2: from France, so I guess Albert Carrier Corey, I blew
Speaker 2: up in my face. And then there was one of
Speaker 2: the best known non professional or non one of the
Speaker 2: best known walk ons I guess you could call him
Speaker 2: same was Felix Carvea Hall and he was from Cuba.
Speaker 2: He was five feet one inch and he was one
Speaker 2: hundred percent awesome.
Speaker 1: He was he was He had a big personality. He
Speaker 1: was quite a character according to all accounts. At various
Speaker 1: time during the race, he would he would stop just
Speaker 1: to chat it up with people who were cheering him on.
Speaker 1: He would playfully like steal peaches out of their hands
Speaker 1: as he was running. He showed up in long sleeves
Speaker 1: and long pants and everyone was like, dude, you got
Speaker 1: to cut those pants down at least and luckily enough
Speaker 1: there was a someone there with a knife and cut
Speaker 1: them off at the knees for him, like right before
Speaker 1: the race started.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was no stranger to running or moving long distances.
Speaker 2: His nickname was Anderene the Walker, and he was well
Speaker 2: known in Cuba already because he had walked the length
Speaker 2: of Cuba and back at least once. I saw it
Speaker 2: twice in one source, that's seven hundred and seventy seven
Speaker 2: miles and He just did it because he wanted to.
Speaker 2: I saw him compared to the turn of the century
Speaker 2: Cuban Forrest Gump.
Speaker 3: I wonder how he liked his shrimp.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. He probably liked it free because
Speaker 2: he very frequently didn't have any money.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He was also a messenger, supposedly ran thirty miles a
Speaker 1: day as part of his job. When he and this
Speaker 1: is where it gets really kind of fun. They didn't
Speaker 1: They weren't going to pay his way. Cuba was like sorry.
Speaker 1: I think the mayor of Evan was like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're not going to pay your way to go there.
Speaker 1: You're welcome to race, but we're not supporting this financially.
Speaker 1: He started running around hall in circles in protest and
Speaker 1: got so many supporters. They said, all right, here's the
Speaker 1: money book, your passage on a steamship, which he took
Speaker 1: to New Orleans and supposedly was lost his money gambling
Speaker 1: and had a hitchhike close to seven hundred miles to
Speaker 1: Saint Louis from there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he hitchhiked and walked, And I saw that by
Speaker 2: the time he arrived in Saint Louis for the race,
Speaker 2: he hadn't eaten in two days, so he ran that
Speaker 2: marathon without having eaten the last two days.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You also said that he liked to joke around with
Speaker 2: people and stop and chat with spectators and stuff. Apparently
Speaker 2: he didn't speak English, and I also saw they didn't
Speaker 2: really speak Spanish, that he spoke some strange slangy dialect
Speaker 2: of Cuban or from Cuba, and that people didn't necessarily
Speaker 2: know what he was talking about. Yeah, well, I could
Speaker 2: tell he was so animated. You were just engrossed in
Speaker 2: what he was saying, and maybe kind of got what
Speaker 2: he was saying, the general broad strokes of what he
Speaker 2: was trying to get cross, or at the very least
Speaker 2: you get a laugh out of you. That's that's how
Speaker 2: I kind of took all that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I know I've said this before, but when I first
Speaker 1: traveled through Europe in the mid nineties, I spent an
Speaker 1: entire night at a German brew house with my friend
Speaker 1: that I was traveling with, hanging out with this old
Speaker 1: German guy.
Speaker 3: I mean old.
Speaker 1: He was probably in his forties, but we were in
Speaker 1: our early twenties. Old he seemed ancient. But yeah, hung
Speaker 1: out with this guy drinking with him for probably five hours.
Speaker 1: He didn't speak a word of English and I spoke
Speaker 1: very bad German, but we communicated all night long.
Speaker 2: It's the international language of beer.
Speaker 3: I exactly ed love.
Speaker 2: We kissed later on, very nice after drinking for five hours.
Speaker 3: Yeah, imagine that.
Speaker 2: So carve Hal is again the biggest personality to emerge
Speaker 2: out of this, but he was far from the only
Speaker 2: kind of character. I guess. There were two guys and
Speaker 2: it's awesome. There's a picture of them together, Leneyu Yanni
Speaker 2: and I don't know if it's Yan or John, but
Speaker 2: Yan Masciani. They were both from South Africa and they
Speaker 2: were from the Swana tribe Dswana, and they were at
Speaker 2: the World's Fair because they were some of the indigenous
Speaker 2: people who've been imported to really kind of play up
Speaker 2: their indigenousness and also to reenact the Boer War between
Speaker 2: the Dutch and the English that had just concluded, and
Speaker 2: they in the war. They had been messengers for the Boers,
Speaker 2: so they were kind of recreating this on the daily.
Speaker 2: They were also involved in I think they ran a
Speaker 2: marathon in the Anthropology Games. I have no idea how
Speaker 2: they were actually brought into the actual Olympic Marathon. The
Speaker 2: main one, the closest explanation that I saw is that
Speaker 2: there was not a lot of internationality among the participants. Again,
Speaker 2: like you said, people just weren't coming. I think d
Speaker 2: kouber Tan, the guy who founded the modern Olympics, didn't
Speaker 2: even bother to show up. That was that poorly attended
Speaker 2: in that klue Ge, Right, So they needed to make
Speaker 2: it more international, and so they had too on Yani
Speaker 2: and Mashiani run in this marathon. That's the best explanation
Speaker 2: I could see of how two black athletes ended up
Speaker 2: running in the Olympic Mathon they would actually become the
Speaker 2: first black African athletes in Olympic history of any event
Speaker 2: of any sport. Yeah, and the first or the last
Speaker 2: to represent South Africa for another eighty six years until
Speaker 2: apartheid was taken down taken apart Wow. And then there's
Speaker 2: one other thing about tu Yani to on Yani, he
Speaker 2: was a mailman, which will come into play in just
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love the picture of those guys, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: it's the look on their faces a little bit like
Speaker 1: we're gonna.
Speaker 2: Do what it's like studiously avoiding looking perplexed, but I
Speaker 2: think they're kind of perplexed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's we're gonna do what slash we got this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of got that feel for sure.
Speaker 3: Because spoiler they finished the race.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you spoiled it for me, all right.
Speaker 1: So the first thing that they did is they ran
Speaker 1: five laps around the Olympic Stadium. You know, I think
Speaker 1: they still do something like that now where they you know,
Speaker 1: where their spectators are to watch before they get out
Speaker 1: on that dirt road. And before they left the stadium,
Speaker 1: John Lorden Boston Marathon Winter started vomiting and quit the race.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was really surprising because he was a favorite.
Speaker 3: Five laps in less than five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, So that was the first guy. Once they
Speaker 2: made it out of the stadium and onto the dirt roads,
Speaker 2: they were immediately confronted with the problem of the thick dust.
Speaker 2: So in addition to running, they're also coughing, breathing shallowly,
Speaker 2: I'm sure, And about ten miles in things really started
Speaker 2: to fall apart. And that's I mean, that's a significant
Speaker 2: distance considering what they were having to put up with.
Speaker 2: And again, this is a ninety degree day in the afternoon,
Speaker 2: in August. Right, Yeah, So what happened first after John
Speaker 2: Lorden was out.
Speaker 1: Well, they're getting dehydrated. They're choking on the dust and
Speaker 1: dirt everywhere. About the ten mile mark, our buddy Fred
Speaker 1: Laure's the brick layer, said.
Speaker 3: I'm tapping out.
Speaker 1: He called on his little satellite phone and seid, I'm
Speaker 1: officially withdrawing, and they got a helicopter and there flew
Speaker 1: him out.
Speaker 3: He actually didn't.
Speaker 1: He said he couldn't continue, and then he flagged down
Speaker 1: a car and jumped in the car and was like,
Speaker 1: I'll just ride with you guys, because you're heading back
Speaker 1: to the Olympic Stadium. But I'm out, and they said sure,
Speaker 1: no problem. So just kind of put that in your
Speaker 1: back pocket.
Speaker 2: I saw somewhere also that it was his court team
Speaker 2: slash coach that had been riding along with him. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like next to him. Yeah, car yeah, so carve Hall.
Speaker 2: He doesn't have anybody there. He's totally on his own.
Speaker 2: He doesn't have a support team. And remember he hasn't
Speaker 2: eaten in two days. So part of the course ran
Speaker 2: past an apple orchard and he decided to stop and
Speaker 2: eat some apples, and depending on who you ask, either
Speaker 2: he ate too many apples because he was very hungry.
Speaker 2: The apples he ate were rotten, or didn't he eat
Speaker 2: apples at all, and he just ate a bunch of
Speaker 2: peaches like you said that he'd snatched from some spectators.
Speaker 2: Either way, he ended up with stomach cramps from either
Speaker 2: the apples or the peaches or both. And so carve
Speaker 2: Hall did what any Olympic marathon or would do face
Speaker 2: with that situation. He found a shady place to lay
Speaker 2: down and took a nap in the middle of the marathon.
Speaker 1: That's right, which is hysterical. So one guy's in a car,
Speaker 1: one guy that the favorite had had puked and stopped
Speaker 1: before they left the stadium. Fun Cuban friend is napping
Speaker 1: in the orchard. One of the South African runners is
Speaker 1: chased a mile off course by a stray dog. So
Speaker 1: that ends up adding I mean, I guess a couple
Speaker 1: of miles if he had to get back right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so he ran like a real marathon.
Speaker 2: Then yeah, exactly, yeah, because this is about two miles shorter.
Speaker 2: So yeah too. On Yanni was the only one to
Speaker 2: run a real marathon. And the reason I mentioned that
Speaker 2: he was a mailman is because yes, he was chased
Speaker 2: by a dog while he was running the marathon. Little cliche,
Speaker 2: but it's it's true. I've seen dogs chase mail carriers before.
Speaker 2: It's not a pretty sight.
Speaker 1: And now ask a mail carrier, they will say that
Speaker 1: it's a trope for a reason.
Speaker 2: So all the way at mile sixteen, Sam Meller, who
Speaker 2: was another favorite, he started to cramp up from dehydration,
Speaker 2: and there's an account that says that he got lost.
Speaker 2: Actually he was kind of disoriented from dehydration and exhaustion
Speaker 2: and trying to find his way back to the course.
Speaker 2: He wore himself out and eventually he was just like,
Speaker 2: I can't do this anymore. I'm out, all.
Speaker 3: Right, So Maloria's now out.
Speaker 1: And then we've got the worst case of them all,
Speaker 1: which was a guy from California named William Garcia Billy
Speaker 1: Garcia a mile nineteen starts coughing up blood. He passes
Speaker 1: out on the road and has rushed to the hospital
Speaker 1: and has to have emergency surgery because his esophagus was
Speaker 1: so caked with dust and dirt and he was swallowing
Speaker 1: so much of this stuff it tore his stomach lining,
Speaker 1: so he could have literally died yeah.
Speaker 2: And imagine. I mean, like this guy just started breathing
Speaker 2: this dust just a couple hours before, so I mean
Speaker 2: it had a really pronounced effect. There was some really
Speaker 2: nasty dusts.
Speaker 3: I guess should we take up a break.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna take a break, and we're gonna start
Speaker 2: closing in on that finish line after we get back.
Speaker 2: How about that.
Speaker 3: All right, We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: So I mentioned earlier, you might have thought I was
Speaker 1: kidding when I said some people, you know, might work
Speaker 1: as a professional clown but can run far. That was
Speaker 1: the case with Thomas Hicks. He was a clown, but
Speaker 1: he was also a clown that suffered from dehydration because
Speaker 1: he was not allowed to drink. Right at mile ten,
Speaker 1: was like, you've got to give me water, you know,
Speaker 1: dust flying out of his mouth, and they said no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you have to run two more miles to get that water.
Speaker 1: They sponged him down with some warm, distilled water, which
Speaker 1: must have been quite a relief, wiped his back and
Speaker 1: shoulders off a little bit. Eventually he would get that water.
Speaker 1: But then on the other side of that break at
Speaker 1: the seven mile mark, was like, by the way, I'm
Speaker 1: thirsty again.
Speaker 3: That didn't satisfy me for the rest of the race.
Speaker 1: They said, here, drink this, and he said, what is
Speaker 1: it and they said his egg whites and strychnine down
Speaker 1: the hatch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and apparently that that was like giving Popeye spinach,
Speaker 2: because you definitely put a little peppin in step. And
Speaker 2: the reason why is because strick nine, in very small doses,
Speaker 2: I saw something like one milligram acts as a stimulant,
Speaker 2: so much so that there was a bronze medalist from
Speaker 2: Kazakhstan in weightlifting name Isat Artikov who had his metal
Speaker 2: strip because he tested positive for stryck nine in twenty sixteen. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's enough of an effective stimulant that it's a
Speaker 2: banned substance. At the time, there weren't any banned substances
Speaker 2: apparently except water in the Olympics or in the marathon. Right,
Speaker 2: so they were able to give them this little boost
Speaker 2: with strychnine. I don't know what the purpose of the
Speaker 2: egg whites were, but I'm sure he was like, I
Speaker 2: don't care. It's there's some percentage of this this water
Speaker 2: and I'll take it.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Water was a performance enhancing drug, but stri thinks, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly all right, So back to Fred Lawres. Remember this
Speaker 1: guy's kicking it in his doctor's car. He's riding around
Speaker 1: the AC's blaring, he's listening to run DMC in the
Speaker 1: back of that limo, and they, you know, they get
Speaker 1: close to the finish line. Back at the stadium about
Speaker 1: four miles out. He was like, this will be hysterical.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling pretty good now after being in the car
Speaker 1: for so long. Yeah, I'm going to pretend like I'm
Speaker 1: still in this race. Got out of the car, ran
Speaker 1: into the stadium. The crowd roars because he's in the lead,
Speaker 1: and crosses the finish line at three hours and thirteen
Speaker 1: minutes and was being handed basically the Brial Cup named
Speaker 1: for Brial who invented this thing from Alice Roosevelt, daughter
Speaker 1: of Teddy, and someone in this stands says, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: that guy was in a car. I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: they found this out, but someone in the stands clued
Speaker 1: them in that he was cheating, and despite him saying like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is just a joke, they're like, no, no, no, my friend,
Speaker 1: you were about to take that cup your band for life.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I imagine that person like shouting out that he
Speaker 2: was a cheater, being kind of like Princess Buttercup getting
Speaker 2: booed in the Princess Bride. Everybody's cheering, and there's that
Speaker 2: one old woman going boo. Yeah, that's kind of exactly
Speaker 2: how it happened, to tell you the truth, now I
Speaker 2: think about it. So Laws was disqualified and Hicks, Thomas Hicks,
Speaker 2: the professional clown, was far enough back that his team
Speaker 2: received word like, hey, this guy is just disqualified. The
Speaker 2: first place is now opened again. And Thomas Hicks is like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna try hit me with some more strychnine and
Speaker 2: egg whites, and you got any brandy on you, because
Speaker 2: I think it's brandy time. And they did. They gave
Speaker 2: him concoction of those three things, and he drank it down,
Speaker 2: and they said, wait a minute, champ, we got something
Speaker 2: even better for you. We're gonna give you another warm
Speaker 2: sponge bath.
Speaker 3: Right, I'll get out there and chafe.
Speaker 2: And so he kept running. And as he kept running,
Speaker 2: remember he had apparently a mile twelve. With that water station,
Speaker 2: they were allowed one cup of water.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: They couldn't just sit there and pound water. So this
Speaker 2: guy was nearing the end of a twenty four mile
Speaker 2: run with one cup of water on, two doses of
Speaker 2: Strych nine, a bunch of egg whites, and some brandy,
Speaker 2: and he is just barely hopping along. Toward the end,
Speaker 2: he was kind of engaging in like a shuffling jog
Speaker 2: into a walk and then back into a shuffling jog.
Speaker 2: And he seemed to as far as the I think
Speaker 2: the race officials said, he was basically out of it,
Speaker 2: just totally out of it, not even in his body anymore.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine the pasty glue like quality of the
Speaker 1: inside of his mouth and the sweaters on his teeth, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, and his breath. Frankly, yeah, at least they.
Speaker 2: Didn't gi him yokes, but yes, it would still be
Speaker 2: pretty bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was one quote about the last couple of
Speaker 1: miles there his eyes. Almost want to read this as
Speaker 1: Quint from Jaws, because that's what it sounds like. His
Speaker 1: eyes were dull, lustreless, the ashen color of his face
Speaker 1: and skin had deepened. His arms appeared as weights well
Speaker 1: tied down. He could scarcely lift his legs while his
Speaker 1: knees were almost stiff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's walking around like Molly Shannon on the episode
Speaker 2: of Seinfeld where she doesn't move her arms when she walks. Right,
Speaker 2: That's how this guy was running his marathon toward the end. Yeah, totally, Yeah,
Speaker 2: making meringue in his mouth. Oh god, So he started
Speaker 2: to hallucinate as the report that Thomas Hicks was like,
Speaker 2: the finish line is still twenty miles away. Can you
Speaker 2: imagine just the sense of dread. Oh my god, that
Speaker 2: would run over you if you suddenly start believing that.
Speaker 2: And I guess his support team was like, no, no, buddy,
Speaker 2: we're almost there. We're right there. And as he started
Speaker 2: to cross the finish line, his trainers helped him. This
Speaker 2: was a kind of something that plagued early marathons that
Speaker 2: the trainers of supports staff were totally fine with essentially
Speaker 2: carrying you across the finish line.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it was this one or the
Speaker 2: guy from the nineteen oh eight Olympic Marathon, but one
Speaker 2: of the two were so carried across the finish line
Speaker 2: that their feet were still moving in mid air as
Speaker 2: if they were still making their way, you know, cartoon
Speaker 2: pretty much. Yeah, so he was very much helped across
Speaker 2: the finish line. But this thing was so exhaustive and
Speaker 2: just so brutal that he's still one first place. But
Speaker 2: even as he was crossing the finish line, there was
Speaker 2: the Saint Louis Dispatch wrote about how he looked and
Speaker 2: how he was behaving, which was even worse than what
Speaker 2: the race official wrote earlier.
Speaker 3: Do you't me to read it? Yeah? You want me
Speaker 3: to read like quint.
Speaker 2: Well, Either that or like a nineteen oh four Saint
Speaker 2: Louis writer.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'll just read it Sammy Davis.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, no, no, come on.
Speaker 3: No, it's too long.
Speaker 1: I'll read the last bit. He must have heard the
Speaker 1: uproar around him, but he betrayed no sign of it.
Speaker 1: He was past that. He did look up once, when
Speaker 1: the din was at its height. He was within a
Speaker 1: few yards of the finish.
Speaker 3: Did you hear that?
Speaker 2: Did something blow up?
Speaker 3: No, it's bad thunder.
Speaker 1: Let's leave it in there and here come Sammy to
Speaker 1: finish up his lower job. Man was hanging as an imbecility.
Speaker 1: His eyes stared blankly bab but his pitiful expression didn't change.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: I think the best thing that ever happened in this
Speaker 2: podcast was everyone, including me, discovering that you can do
Speaker 2: a great Sammy Davis Junior.
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean it all goes to Billy Crystala just
Speaker 1: stole his impression from SNL.
Speaker 2: I'm not I reject that.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, so he was in worse shape than we thought.
Speaker 3: Even he didn't even know what was going on.
Speaker 2: What was his time?
Speaker 1: Three hours, twenty eight minutes, the worst time in history
Speaker 1: of the Olympics.
Speaker 2: So apparently by thirty minutes, it was the slowest gold
Speaker 2: medal time in the Olympic marathon by thirty full minutes.
Speaker 2: And keep in mind, starting at the next Olympics in
Speaker 2: nineteen oh eight, the marathon began to be run as
Speaker 2: a twenty six point two mile race, so this was
Speaker 2: two miles shorter and still slower by thirty minutes. So
Speaker 2: technically he was probably about forty minutes slower than the
Speaker 2: next worst time in Olympic history. There was one other
Speaker 2: really significant thing about all this. It had the greatest
Speaker 2: number of did not finishes. Something like fifty six percent
Speaker 2: of the people did not complete the race. Only fourteen
Speaker 2: of the original thirty two runners completed this race. That
Speaker 2: is abysmal. I think the next worse percentage was like
Speaker 2: twenty eight percent. In Tokyo a few years back. This
Speaker 2: is like, no, nothing has ever been run like this
Speaker 2: before and hasn't been since.
Speaker 1: Yeah, our friends from South Africa both finished, like I
Speaker 1: said earlier. One came in twelfth place, so beat two people,
Speaker 1: and one of them came in ninth place, so you know,
Speaker 1: ninth out of fifteen. And these guys had never run
Speaker 1: marathons before.
Speaker 2: No, and one of them I think we left out.
Speaker 2: If you look at that photo, one of them's wearing
Speaker 2: boots and the other one's barefoot, so it's pretty impressive. Carvall,
Speaker 2: Carve Hall, I just I keep thinking of the ice
Speaker 2: cream cake in it. Message. Yeah, Carve Hall. He finished fourth,
Speaker 2: and don't forget he took a nap in the middle
Speaker 2: of this, hadn't eaten in two days, and still finished fourth.
Speaker 2: So there's no telling what he could have done had
Speaker 2: he been wrested and fed and hadn't eaten a bunch
Speaker 2: of apples that gave him stomach cramps. So Carve Hall
Speaker 2: won in my opinion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: You would think that James Sullivan learned his lesson, and
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I guess we proved that water
Speaker 1: drinking is probably something you should do, because you know,
Speaker 1: less than half of these guys finished. Not. So he
Speaker 1: actually wrote a book in nineteen oh nine called Marathon Running,
Speaker 1: where he said, don't get into the habit of drinking
Speaker 1: and eating in a marathon race.
Speaker 3: Some prominent runners do, but it is not beneficial. Smart
Speaker 3: smart guy.
Speaker 2: So he did also say that there was that the
Speaker 2: marathon was essentially indefensible and that I asked too much
Speaker 2: of human endurance. So he kind of turned his back
Speaker 2: on it. But other people are like, no, we like
Speaker 2: the marathon. He's like, really, okay, yeah, the marathon's great, right,
Speaker 2: And like I said, the nineteen oh eight Olympic Marathon
Speaker 2: was the first where it was run as twenty six
Speaker 2: point two miles, And the lore goes that that extra
Speaker 2: point two miles was because the distance from the actual
Speaker 2: finish line at twenty six miles to the box where
Speaker 2: the royal were sitting watching the race was point two miles,
Speaker 2: so they had to add point two miles onto that
Speaker 2: twenty six miles so that the royals could be sitting
Speaker 2: there at the finish line. That's the lore, and I'm.
Speaker 3: Pressing it's true. Yeahs not totally buy that.
Speaker 2: Sure you got anything else.
Speaker 3: I got nothing else. This was a good one. Thank
Speaker 3: you to Peter Pittsgibbon.
Speaker 2: Thanks Peter. If you want to be like Peter and
Speaker 2: send us an email, we would love that. We always
Speaker 2: are happy to get good ideas. We'll add them to
Speaker 2: the pile. And since I said that and got confused
Speaker 2: for a second thinking that I was wrapping up the show,
Speaker 2: it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: I'm going to call this short and suite on phone
Speaker 1: freaking And this is from Kathy with a K. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: when you mentioned long distance calls and how people got
Speaker 1: around the high rates, reminded me of when I was
Speaker 1: a teenager and we'll go out of town with friends
Speaker 1: skiing or to the beach at a system where they
Speaker 1: would arrive at our destination. We would call home person
Speaker 1: to person asking to speak to buddy, who was their dog,
Speaker 1: and that was the little clue there. My parents would
Speaker 1: say he was not at home, and they would know
Speaker 1: that we'd arrived safely.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 1: That's from Kathy with a K. So it's a nice
Speaker 1: little workaround hack parents knew when someone called asking for
Speaker 1: the dog, that just meant they were there safely.
Speaker 3: Fair charges.
Speaker 2: Anytime I hear Kathy with the K. It makes me
Speaker 2: wonder if it's one of our Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 2: Army members Kathy with the K from Arizona who gave
Speaker 2: us the lastos to learn how to steer with.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's at Kathy, but I've still got
Speaker 3: that rope. I keep it at the camp same here.
Speaker 3: I hope to rope a bear one day.
Speaker 2: That would be great. I hope you get it on
Speaker 2: video if you do. Yeah, Well, if you want to
Speaker 2: be like Kathy and send us a cute little anecdote
Speaker 2: about something we talked about, we love that too, and
Speaker 2: you can send that as well to Stuff podcast at
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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