Race for Life

The story I am about to tell is a story of superhuman endurance and athletic prowess.  We have two amazing athletes one from the United states of America and one from the United Kingdom.  In nineteen eighty five they embarked on a footrace across America a total distance of three thousand five hundred and fifty nine miles all to be completed in ninety days.

Our two athletes are called Marvin Skagerberg from the United States and Malcolm Campbell from the United Kingdom.  Both athletes where highly experienced long distance runners having competed in many races in excess of one hundred miles.  The distances involved in this race though boggled the imagination they had to run an average of forty miles a day for three months.  The mental and physical preparation for a race like this were brutal in the extreme.  Malcolm in particular upped his already prodigious training mileage from fifteen to twenty five miles a day.

A good question would be, why would two relatively sane individuals embark on a crazy quest like this the answer is quite simple they were asked.  The people doing the asking was a charity that specialised in raising funds to find a cure for a particular disease which is known in America as the Lou Gehrig disease.  This was the disease that robbed baseball of one of its brightest stars.

So the race began as Malcolm had never beaten Marvin in competition before it was not unexpected when Marvin took the lead. Day after day they ground out the mileage stopping in different towns and cities to attend fund raisers and dinners all to raise as much money for the charity as possible.  Just think for a second they had just completed another stint of forty miles and they both had the fortitude and energy to actively fund raise for the charity.  It was no wonder cities like Chicago and New York gave both athletes the honour of the keys to the city.

Blisters sprains and in Malcolms case heatstroke,which he received whilst running through Death valley never managed to stop our intrepid pair.  Marvin with only twelve days to go had what looked like an insurmountable  lead over Malcolm.  Then he made a big mistake when he took the wrong road to Pittsburgh by the time he realised his mistake and got back on the right road he was two hours behind Malcolm.  Now malcolm swears to this day that was the only time he thought he would win the race as Marvin was a superbly strong athlete who did not understand the word quit.

The race ended in New York on July the tenth nineteen eighty five and the winner was Marvin who had run his heart out to catch and beat Malcolm after his costly mistake.  So after three thousand five hundred and fifty nine miles just sixteen minutes seperated our two athletes in accumlative time just totally amazing.  The charity recieved in excess of one million dollars to help with there good work.

Neither of our two athletes were finished for the year Malcolm in particular ran a six day race just one month later covering almost five hundred miles.  Then later in the year they met up again this time in the United kingdom to run a thousand mile race this time Malcolm won joking that Marvin did not like the sprints.  Malcolm also achieved the bonus of getting in the Guiness book of world records for running the most competitive mileage in one year a total of five thousand five hundred and two competitive miles or the equivalent of four marathons a week for the entire year truly amazing.