The Art of Manliness - #167： When Watching People Walk Was America's Favorite Spectator Sport

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well today

00:00:18.760 sports is a multi-billion dollar industry football basketball soccer baseball i mean

00:00:26.080 thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people come to watch these sports they watch them on

00:00:30.920 television the athletes are making millions of dollars hundreds of millions of dollars their

00:00:35.440 salary plus there's the endorsement deals that go along with it but here's the thing that this all

00:00:39.400 started this whole mega sports industry that we have today started with the super exciting sport

00:00:46.220 that happened in the 19th century of competitive walking yes i'm being serious my guest today

00:00:51.960 dug up this long forgotten sport that really kicked off the modern sport era his name is matthew algeo

00:00:58.660 he wrote a book called pedestrianism when watching people walk was america's favorite spectator sport

00:01:04.380 and it's just a fascinating look at a lost bit of american history that has a wider influence on

00:01:11.140 sport today everything that we know about sport today with the endorsement deals super high salaries

00:01:17.000 super high payouts thousands of people watching a sport this all started with competitive walking

00:01:22.640 which is really bizarre i mean it happened during the late 19th century during a time that's sort of

00:01:26.740 that i like it's when you know boxing was coming to rise john l sullivan teddy roosevelt was coming to

00:01:31.820 power you had the rise of mass media the rise of consumer culture and all these things came together

00:01:36.860 around competitive walking well today on the podcast matthew algeo and i discuss this long

00:01:42.440 forgotten sport and how it influences sport today uh so really fun interesting look into a forgotten

00:01:49.620 bit of history so without further ado pedestrianism with matthew algeo

00:01:53.260 matthew algeo welcome to the show thank you thank you for inviting me well you're welcome so the reason

00:02:06.820 i invited you because i i forgot where i heard about your book but it's talking about this obscure

00:02:12.160 sport that i knew nothing about even though like gilded age america is one of my favorite parts

00:02:17.500 of american history right you have the rise of prize fighting you know we got john l sullivan

00:02:21.900 on the the masthead of our website teddy roosevelt all this stuff but i had no idea that there's a sport

00:02:29.280 called pedestrianism which is just basically walking was the most popular sport in america

00:02:36.760 for about 40 years i'm curious how did you come across this bit of forgotten american history

00:02:42.240 well uh yeah it's definitely been forgotten um i was actually researching a book uh about uh eight or

00:02:52.040 nine years ago about the 1943 merger of the steelers and the eagles you might be aware of this they were the

00:02:58.780 steegals for a season yeah because in 1943 during world war ii the teams were so short of players they

00:03:05.000 had to merge two teams so they merged the steelers and the eagles so i was writing a book about the

00:03:10.180 steegals and while i was researching that book i you know did some research on the history of spectator

00:03:15.060 sports in the united states and i'm like you i'm a big fan of uh of the gilded age i i love the 1890s

00:03:22.680 the 1880s and i was blown away to realize that uh when i was researching the history of spectator

00:03:30.480 sports that in the 1880s and 1890s this sport of pedestrianism was the most popular spectator

00:03:36.860 sport in the united states people thousands tens of thousands of people would fill arenas to watch

00:03:42.520 guys walk around a dirt track for days at a time and this was just the most entrancing fascinating

00:03:49.620 thing that was going on in the gilded age and people bet on this i mean it's funny right now we

00:03:56.020 have all this controversy about uh you know uh fantasy sports and then that online betting with

00:04:01.640 fantasy sports i mean this was the original fantasy sport people would bet on anything about these guys

00:04:06.640 who would be the first to walk 100 miles who would be the first to drop out of the race it was

00:04:10.820 just like the most amazing spectator sport in the united states for like you said a real short period

00:04:16.740 of time but for that period of time in the 1880s and 1890s it ruled yeah and like newspapers were

00:04:22.840 like the new york times would write about it uh the national police gazette uh we've talked about a bit

00:04:28.280 about that on the the show on the website before they were loved they loved the the the the pedestrianism

00:04:34.840 because it was like it was like a freak of nature i mean was what it really was what it came down to

00:04:38.760 well i mean one of the one of the the most popular form of pedestrianism was the six-day race

00:04:44.820 okay so guys would walk for six days beginning you couldn't because back then of course on sundays

00:04:51.920 you couldn't have any entertainment yeah blue laws blue laws exactly and so uh the races would begin

00:04:58.400 right after midnight monday morning and then continue right up until midnight saturday night

00:05:04.680 so it was six days long and during this time you would have the newspapers uh covering the event

00:05:11.040 they would be posting updates all over all over the city on billboards and uh and people would just

00:05:17.680 be following it there would they would have extra editions of the newspapers published to show

00:05:21.900 who was in front you know who was who was leading at that at that time of the day on monday morning on

00:05:28.440 tuesday afternoon on wednesday afternoon and so it really was just an amazing cultural phenomenon at the

00:05:34.380 time yeah so you said uh it was a high stakes game like lots of money was we'll talk about how much

00:05:40.040 the pride the purses were for these competitions it was insane um but the gambling that was involved

00:05:45.740 like what's funny about pedestrianism is that it got started on a bet is tell us a little bit about the

00:05:50.720 story of how pedestrianism got its start sure um it was the 1860 presidential election and of course

00:05:58.740 abraham lincoln was the republican candidate in 1860 and uh there were about three other three other

00:06:05.060 candidates the democratic party was split but there was a guy in uh boston a guy named edward

00:06:11.320 payson weston and he bet a friend that lincoln would lose the election in 1860 and of course lincoln wins

00:06:18.940 the election in 1860 uh the terms of the bet though were unusual weston had to walk from boston

00:06:26.080 to washington uh in time to see the election in time to see the inauguration of lincoln in march of 1861

00:06:35.920 and uh so weston did this walk it's the middle of winter he's walking from boston to washington

00:06:42.760 and it really caught the nation's attention uh he became a very popular figure in the in the media the

00:06:48.920 newspapers covered this walk would would pick would uh weston make it to washington in time to see

00:06:54.760 lincoln's inauguration uh weston actually was about four hours late to the inauguration he didn't win

00:07:00.280 the bet um well he he lost the bet he didn't he didn't fulfill the wager but he became such a

00:07:05.560 sensation that people all over the country uh wanted to see weston walk i mean it blows your mind but

00:07:14.260 people came out you know just to see him walk through their town when he was doing this walk from

00:07:18.740 boston to washington and he figured well there's got to be a way i can monetize this and so uh he

00:07:24.820 started taking his act on the road and he walked indoors and roller skating rinks he tried to walk

00:07:30.060 100 miles in 24 hours that sort of thing and that's how he became a very famous pedestrian he started the

00:07:37.060 whole idea of competitive walking in the united states and he he was actually a showman uh which i thought

00:07:43.740 was really interesting he wasn't really much of an i guess he was an athlete he was able to do these

00:07:47.700 things but he he brought a bit of showmanship into into the sport i like to say he was the uh he was

00:07:54.520 the abraham lincoln he was the muhammad ali of the 1870s he he understood just instinctively

00:08:04.860 the connection between entertainment and sports so he would say for instance he would walk 100 miles

00:08:12.900 in 24 hours which is really an incredible feat um it's it's hard to do even today but when he did it

00:08:22.120 he wore long velvet coats and he always carried a cane and he wore a top hat and he always had a you know

00:08:31.240 he wore a necktie or a cravat he understood that you had to play to the crowd he really had i mean it was

00:08:39.800 almost ahead of its time in the way he understood that you really had to entertain at the same time

00:08:46.680 that you were performing an athletic feat like i say it's it's it's it's a lot like muhammad ali

00:08:53.000 yeah this was the uh during the gilded days this is really when mass media was starting and i guess

00:08:59.100 he was one of those first people who intuitively understood the power of mass media i think teddy

00:09:05.240 roosevelt was like a president the first president that really understood the power of mass media

00:09:08.700 i guess weston was the first athlete who understood the power of mass media to catapult him to fame and

00:09:13.920 riches yeah and it's funny i'm i'm actually i'm working on a book about roosevelt right now and how

00:09:19.280 he played the media uh and uh weston really he played the media so well and i don't mean that in a

00:09:27.000 negative way he he he knew that the picture on the front page of the paper was more dramatic if he was

00:09:33.260 wearing a long flowing coat and carrying his you know gold topped cane i mean he he really understood

00:09:40.820 how uh entertainment worked how uh sports worked how business worked i mean he was one of the first

00:09:49.900 athletes to really become uh interested invested in his own business he he he he you know negotiated his

00:09:59.460 own contracts i mean this was unheard of at the time most athletes were uh sort of led along by

00:10:06.500 guys who took advantage of them but weston wasn't like that he was kind of the first generation of

00:10:12.060 athletes who really uh you know knew how to capitalize on their fame so how did it transition how did it

00:10:19.160 start from uh you know weston doing this bet basically to walk to all the way to washington dc

00:10:25.860 and transform into this thing where it was there was competitive leagues like there were matches

00:10:30.860 and and money was at stake how did that transition happen and here's the other like why did it why

00:10:36.520 did it happen what sort of cultural forces were going on at the time that allowed pedestrianism to

00:10:42.900 be the most popular spectator sport in america well uh uh really one of the things was that

00:10:51.420 roller skating became very popular and the roller skate was invented the kind we know today with the

00:10:58.700 four wheels on the bottom that you can lean and turn and roller skating rinks popped up all over the

00:11:04.680 country and these were really kind of the first enclosed public spaces uh and so there were these venues

00:11:13.260 that were sitting there with uh nothing to do except roller skating and weston who had just walked

00:11:20.240 from boston to washington realized that all these people wanted to watch him walk and all these

00:11:26.420 roller skating rinks were out there and so he would go to a roller skating rink and he'd set up a track

00:11:32.620 and it might be 50 laps to a mile i mean these were tiny little roller skating rinks but he he would go in

00:11:40.140 there and he would charge people 10 cents to go watch him walk 100 miles in 20 uh in 24 hours that sort

00:11:47.540 of thing so was it was this weird convergence of indoor spaces and the uh and and weston people like

00:11:58.080 him seeing how they could capitalize on these indoor public spaces for the first time and you also have

00:12:05.560 to remember at the time we're talking about after the civil war for the first time people have a little

00:12:10.500 extra money in their pockets uh you see industrialization coming in people have a little extra time on their

00:12:16.660 hands extra time extra money these indoor roller skating rinks edward pace and weston traveling

00:12:23.920 around the country walking 100 miles in 24 hours all over the all over the country and so all these

00:12:29.920 things came together and sort of turned what was this weird bet that he could walk from boston to

00:12:35.840 washington uh into a professional sport yeah and i guess at the time baseball was just getting started

00:12:43.220 so that wasn't a factor they weren't competing with baseball uh prize fighting was around but that was

00:12:48.780 an underground sport and looked down upon so right walking you also have to you have to remember like

00:12:55.260 baseball baseball uh sort of had a sold a bad reputation uh boxing of course had a bad reputation

00:13:04.240 pedestrianism was a wholesome sport it was walking what could be more wholesome than walking

00:13:11.200 and so really it was this void that weston filled when he started going around the country

00:13:17.000 staging these walking exhibitions that said uh you know you could bring the family it was family

00:13:22.280 entertainment five or ten cents a person and uh you could take the family to go see it you would

00:13:27.720 never take the family to go see john l sullivan and even baseball at the time had a bad reputation

00:13:33.980 and so it really was the first family entertainment uh mass entertainment in the united states in the

00:13:41.220 1870s 1880s 1890s so uh besides having these expeditions where people would pay to watch uh it

00:13:47.360 evolved to becoming a a sport where there's like belts like they created a belt system right like prize

00:13:52.760 fighting um right can you talk a little about what i thought was just mind-boggling was the amount of

00:13:58.900 money uh the the purses that these uh these walkers these pedestrians could win can you talk a little

00:14:04.760 about some of the the prizes that were won by some of these athletes right so uh so you got weston and

00:14:12.500 he's going out he's walking these exhibitions and of course people see how much money he's making and

00:14:18.220 competitors arise naturally and the biggest competitor was a guy named daniel o'leary he was an irish

00:14:25.340 immigrant and uh he figured well if weston can walk 100 miles in 24 hours i can walk 105 miles in 24

00:14:33.540 hours and eventually they met in a race and it was a six-day race as we mentioned earlier that was as

00:14:39.940 long as you could race uh and uh the first big race was in chicago but this sort of morphed into these

00:14:47.200 six-day races involving all sorts of competitors from the united states and from great britain

00:14:53.500 and uh as you mentioned that the the the uh the the the payouts on these races were tremendous

00:15:01.680 because think about it it's a six-day race uh you're at the first madison square garden

00:15:08.420 um they might have 10 000 seats but it's continuous it's for six days and so people are coming and going

00:15:16.860 constantly so you could have 500 000 people maybe come and see this race over the course of a week

00:15:24.480 because you might come in and see it for five minutes and leave and so everybody was paying

00:15:29.740 50 cents or a dollar a ticket the winner of the race might receive 25 30 40 thousand dollars which

00:15:38.000 today is a million dollars i mean this is for six days work whoever won would get a million dollars for

00:15:44.740 six days work this actually stands up to what you see for professional athletes today yeah you know

00:15:52.340 because a million dollars for a week is 50 million for a year that's a pretty good that's a pretty good

00:15:58.560 baseball player right there even today and besides the the payouts did some of these athletes get

00:16:04.200 sponsorship deals like modern athletes do yeah um what was interesting you mentioned the police gazette

00:16:10.760 before uh you guys know all about the police gazette yeah um but they were one of the big sponsors

00:16:17.720 because they covered the races people people who subscribed to the police gazette loved pedestrianism

00:16:23.700 and so uh they had a guy that they paid uh i think two thousand dollars to wear the wear a shirt that

00:16:30.140 just had the police gazette logo on it during a race and so you had uh yeah you know i mentioned dan

00:16:36.880 o'leary earlier uh he was the spokesperson for a brand of salt

00:16:41.400 you know my when i need to when i need to re-salt i use tiger salt yeah you know um so these guys

00:16:51.920 they were some of the first uh uh athlete spokesmen in in the united states it was really uh

00:17:00.440 is the beginning of this whole sports industrial complex yeah and they were also the first on

00:17:07.440 um sports cards right like the cigarette cards yeah yeah yeah yeah um cigarette cards really came out

00:17:15.160 started beginning in the 1870s and 1880s and uh i've got a couple of them uh the some of the first

00:17:22.460 athletes featured on these sporting cards were pedestrians uh and uh frank hart uh who was actually

00:17:30.300 one of the first famous black athletes in the united states he was an african-american who won

00:17:35.280 a couple major pedestrian events he's probably the first african-american ever featured on a trading

00:17:40.500 card in the united states um all these guys are forgotten now nobody remembers them um that's probably

00:17:48.100 not why nobody's buying my book but uh but uh but i i really think that they they were they were

00:17:55.300 a huge part of american sports history and i really think they need to be remembered yeah

00:18:00.320 tell us a little more about frank hart because i thought this was really interesting i mean this was

00:18:03.600 uh before uh i guess plessy v ferguson um yes and you know people always have this idea that that

00:18:10.380 sports and it was has always been segregated segregated but there was a time right before

00:18:16.080 plessy v ferguson uh when separate um but equal was the law of the land where you had black athletes

00:18:23.020 who were competing and doing really well uh in competitive sports in america can you tell us a

00:18:27.480 little bit more about frank hart yeah and there were even black athletes there were black baseball

00:18:32.640 players in the in the 1880s and 1890s you're right plessy v ferguson ended everything it ended it

00:18:39.560 ended any kind of integration that was going on the beauty of pedestrianism was that anybody who could

00:18:45.920 walk could do it and almost everybody can walk black people can walk chinese people can walk white people

00:18:56.180 can walk it was amazing the variety of people you had in pedestrian events because anybody who could

00:19:04.860 walk could take part and it didn't matter what your race was what your color was and this was a

00:19:13.240 people tend to forget this that that in the gilded age you had this weird period between reconstruction

00:19:20.300 and plessy v ferguson as you mentioned where there was a wide open field really i mean i i make the

00:19:30.660 argument in the book that things were a lot better for african-american athletes between reconstruction

00:19:36.120 and plessy versus ferguson than they were between plessy and you know jackie robinson i mean black

00:19:45.360 black people could take part in sporting events with white people and frank hart was one of those

00:19:50.380 people an african-american who took part in these events and uh he won several six-day races his picture

00:19:57.780 was on the front page of the new york newspapers i mean it was amazing for an african-american at that time

00:20:04.280 uh to do what he did and it's a shame that uh he couldn't you know that it it really ended with

00:20:13.460 plessy versus ferguson yeah and he won a lot of money too um and these guys won so much money um

00:20:20.620 you really don't appreciate but like uh you know winning 12 15 000 in 1889 was like we need half a

00:20:32.420 million dollars today yeah and really for six days work you could take half a million dollars home if

00:20:38.280 these guys want two races a year they want a million dollars a year i mean it was amazing yeah

00:20:44.120 well i guess something we haven't really talked about is uh how these races actually went down so

00:20:50.320 a lot of more six-day races but they weren't walking continuously for six days um how how did the

00:20:56.500 the whole walking match occur and what were some of the rules that uh govern these um events

00:21:02.540 okay for a walking match strictly uh one foot had to be on the ground at all times heel toe heel toe

00:21:13.720 just like today for you know you have these walking uh in the olympics you have uh 10 50 kilometer

00:21:22.180 walking matches um so you see the way people walk that sort of funny swiveling their hips

00:21:28.080 kind of walk that's how people walked um but the match will begin as i mentioned earlier right after

00:21:34.140 midnight on monday morning uh typically it would continue right up until uh midnight on saturday

00:21:40.440 night there would be tents erected in the middle of the middle of the track there'd be a dirt track on

00:21:46.780 the floor it'd be maybe an eighth or a seventh of a mile around it'd be inside an arena almost

00:21:52.040 always these were indoor events and uh whoever walked the most miles over those six days would

00:21:58.680 be the winner you could you could stop whenever you wanted you could go rest in your tent

00:22:02.720 most people ate while they walked they might eat some greasy eel broth or something like that it wasn't

00:22:10.000 really the kind of you know nutrition that that people take today uh but whoever walked the most

00:22:16.660 miles in six days was the winner that was the most common race the six-day race

00:22:21.040 gotcha yeah i thought it was really interesting how they uh uh kept themselves you know some of the

00:22:25.220 things they did you know you mentioned the greasy eel broth but i guess champagne was like a really

00:22:29.600 popular drink yeah to keep you going they thought uh they thought alcohol was a stimulant

00:22:38.060 and so a lot of guys would drink a lot of alcohol and then sometimes literally fall off the track

00:22:45.940 it was just amazing that it it took them a while to figure out that you probably shouldn't be drinking

00:22:52.380 during the race but the guys who who took it most seriously really they did training i mean we i you

00:22:59.780 know i tend to you know make fun of them or whatever but the guys who are very serious about it uh they

00:23:06.740 did a lot of training they did a lot of running a lot of jogging that sort of thing i mean they were

00:23:11.120 athletes on a par with the athletes of today well speaking of how pedestrianism really laid the

00:23:17.920 foundation of modern sport in america you talk about how pedestrianism had america's first doping

00:23:24.700 scandal not that this was really funny too so yeah um well uh edward payson weston who we had

00:23:34.020 mentioned earlier he took part in a in a race in the uk uh and uh it was discovered that he was uh

00:23:42.720 chewing coca leaves and uh this was of course a stimulant uh but at the time there were no rules i

00:23:51.360 mean this was one of the problems with pedestrianism and one of the reasons it died is that there was no

00:23:57.000 governing body of pedestrianism there was no commissioner of pedestrianism there was you know not nobody to

00:24:03.480 really to take control of the sport and so when weston was found to be chewing these coca leaves uh

00:24:10.100 uh there was nobody to enforce any rule to say it was wrong there's nobody to uh tell him that uh

00:24:19.260 he should be expelled from the sport that sort of thing and so it really sort of just went it just

00:24:25.560 went it just went by that uh weston got away with this he he later insisted that it gave him no

00:24:32.340 competitive advantage but of course that's what everybody says when they uh chew coca leaves

00:24:38.400 when they get caught right yeah um so i mean you mentioned okay there was a lack of organ uh an

00:24:44.140 organizing body that led to the decline but what other factors led to the decline of pedestrianism and

00:24:50.240 why was it forgotten from american history wow well you know baseball really uh

00:25:01.960 you know i mentioned that pedestrianism had no commissioner well baseball in 1876 uh the owners of

00:25:11.300 baseball teams organized the national league and baseball really became the american pastime within

00:25:17.900 10 20 years of that uh they had a commissioner they could uh oversee the sport they could wipe out

00:25:25.360 gambling uh they could maintain the integrity of the sport pedestrian and pedestrianism had nothing like

00:25:32.420 that uh also the invention of the bicycle remember the old time 19th century bicycle is that kind with the

00:25:41.560 big huge front wheel yeah and that hipsters drive around yeah exactly i saw that on gawker recently but 0.97

00:25:52.200 anyway yes so the hipsters who drive these big bicycles around but those were very hard to race they 0.99

00:25:58.680 weren't very nimble the invention of the safety bicycle in the 1880s that's the bicycle we drive today

00:26:04.440 with the two same size wheels in the drive chain well that was much more interesting to watch race for

00:26:09.940 six days than people walking around a track and so the combination of baseball and the bicycle really

00:26:15.920 eliminated pedestrianism from from the you know sporting scene in the united states people uh just

00:26:23.580 stopped watching it moved on to other sports moved on to more interesting things as for why they're

00:26:30.160 forgotten um i don't know i mean why would you remember who people you know why why would you

00:26:37.820 remember people who walked i don't know but i thought it was excuse me i thought it was interesting too

00:26:45.180 towards the end of its heyday uh it like moral crusaders started going after pedestrianism much in the

00:26:52.120 same way they went after prize fighting or bullfighting or cockfighting well one of the one of the most

00:26:59.440 entertaining things about watching a six-day race was going in to watch day number five or six because

00:27:09.380 people the competitors would be so bedraggled they would be so worn out they'd almost be dead on their feet

00:27:18.380 i mean that was the exciting thing was to go watch these people after five or six days of continuously

00:27:24.940 walking uh what they would look like how they would behave and so there were crusaders morality crusaders

00:27:33.840 and they were aligned with the temperance movement who came in and said uh this is uh you know making

00:27:42.040 fun of these people this is it's like a it's like a exhibitionism uh it's it's it's uh immoral to watch

00:27:51.300 these people after five or six days and so there was a the weight of this crusade came down on

00:27:57.260 pedestrianism and uh it really had a hard time recovering from that yeah so we we forgot about

00:28:03.940 pedestrianism um but it did lay the groundwork for modern sports as far as its connection to mass media

00:28:10.260 its connection to gambling uh the connection to you know athletic sponsorships but i'm curious i mean

00:28:16.380 i think you mentioned olympic walking is that a remnant of pedestrianism

00:28:20.840 it is um walking is one of the very few sports that has been in the olympics continuously since the

00:28:31.060 very first olympics in what was it 1896 i forget um um but i think really you see and i don't think

00:28:40.940 it's stretched to say pedestrianism really you see it more in even major league baseball or nfl where

00:28:49.740 the idea of capitalizing on an athletic event uh pedestrianism was one of the first

00:28:57.500 sports to figure out a way to monetize itself um there were sponsorships uh there was there were

00:29:10.440 championships um there were all sorts of different ways to make money and that's all what sports is

00:29:18.520 about today it's making money and uh pedestrianism was the first sport i really think you know because

00:29:25.480 the other sports were sort of under the radar boxing and and uh baseball i mean uh they were kind

00:29:32.600 of either for gentlemen or for ruffians but pedestrianism was the first sport that was for the general

00:29:38.780 populace and they figured out a way to make money that's i'm curious did writing this book like did you

00:29:44.820 start walking more because they're like i'm gonna i'm gonna try doing one of those feats or did

00:29:49.680 like did you start walking more because it's like after reading i was like i'm gonna start walking more

00:29:52.940 i encourage you to attempt a 24-hour race i actually did a 24-hour race uh people came up to me and said

00:30:05.140 have you ever done this no no no no no no so uh actually last year in uh october i did a uh 24-hour

00:30:13.620 race in new jersey and i walked it just walk for 24 hours see how far you go and uh i did 51 miles

00:30:24.260 so i am proud to say that yes

00:30:26.860 after all that i was uh i was inspired to to uh to attempt a 24-hour race

00:30:34.900 very good i'm gonna i'm gonna give that a try i'm gonna do it

00:30:37.480 you know and but that's half

00:30:39.740 yeah half

00:30:41.400 of what weston did or o'leary did or frank hart did

00:30:45.800 they would walk 100 miles in a day

00:30:48.280 that's crazy

00:30:49.100 and so you know i mean your basic walking speed is about four miles an hour

00:30:56.620 so just go walk but not stop for 24 hours and you're not at 100 miles so

00:31:04.200 all right well i'm gonna give it a try and i'm gonna challenge everyone out there who's listening

00:31:08.820 to to go try this too uh we're gonna get some some records on here so we can beat weston

00:31:15.180 the races are a lot of fun there's um it's really cool that you know uh ultra marathons

00:31:24.580 are not for regular people but 24-hour races those those kinds of races a regular person can do it

00:31:33.000 because there's no did not finish yeah everybody finishes yeah so it's really it's really a lot of fun

00:31:42.280 very good well matthew algeo thank you so much for your time this has been an absolute pleasure

00:31:46.700 oh brad i really enjoyed it thank you for inviting me

00:31:49.720 thank you my guest today was matthew algeo he's the author of the book pedestrianism and you can find

00:31:54.780 that on amazon.com go get it it's a fun quick little read and you're going to find out a bit

00:31:59.420 about american history that a lot of people don't know about

00:32:02.200 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:32:09.900 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at art of manliness.com and if you enjoy

00:32:13.700 this podcast i'd really appreciate it if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher or whatever it is

00:32:17.480 you use to listen to the podcast or tell a friend about the show i'd really appreciate that until next

00:32:22.180 time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:32:25.020 you

The Art of Manliness - January 08, 2016

#167： When Watching People Walk Was America's Favorite Spectator Sport

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