Read the questions on the form before you start reading the text.
Johnny Miles’ Marathon Memories
A Cape Breton runner still recalls the greatest race of his life.
The oldest living winner of the famous Boston Marathon—Nova Scotia’s celebrated Johnny Miles—still remembered details of his incredible victory 75 years afterward. When I reached him by phone at his retirement home in Hamilton, Ontario, the former runner had just turned 95. During that call in the fall of 2000, the marathon champ shared with me some faded memories of that celebrated race in 1926. He remembered the footwear that carried him to his victory.
“A pair of sneakers,” he said. “They were very light.”
How much did they cost?
“98 cents,” he said.
Imagine that! I chuckled at the price.
Floyd Williston, author of Johnny Miles: Nova Scotia’s Marathon King, told me Miles started running as a boy. The author explained how the young Miles trained while driving the horse-drawn delivery wagon for the local grocery store.
“His father made the reins extra long,” said Floyd. “Miles would get out of the wagon with the long reins and run behind the horse,” he said. “He was often seen like that on the streets of Sydney Mines.”
Young Miles had never run a 42.2-kilometre marathon until that April in 1926, when he showed up at the starting line in Boston. The 20-year-old was going up against his running hero—Albin Stenroos of Finland, the Olympic marathon champion.
The race began. The crowd of runners surged through the Boston streets. Johnny Miles followed his father’s advice to hang back behind the lead runner, Stenroos, and stay alongside the number-two runner in the pack, a runner named Demar. But when he saw that Demar was not about to make a move forward, Miles decided to act alone.
Miles increased his pace, pulling up alongside Stenroos.
“He ran with him for a minute or so,” said Floyd, “and then Johnny noticed that Stenroos was tiring. At Heartbreak Hill he passed Stenroos and never looked back!”
Johnny Miles beat the Olympic champion to the finish line by four minutes! This Nova Scotia runner had set a Boston Marathon record.
No comments:
Post a Comment