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Running For Their Lives

Running For Their Lives

  • The Extraordinary Story of Britain’s Greatest Ever Distance Runners

In 1928 two extraordinary Englishmen competed in an unprecedented event - a transcontinental road race across America that required them to run an average of 40 miles for 80 consecutive days.

Despite being separated by class, education and age, Peter Gavuzzi and Arthur Newton became close friends and formed a successful business partnership as endurance athletes. They raced in 500-mile relays, in 24-hour events, in snowshoes and against horses; and they became the stars of a craze for endurance events that swept across depression-era North America and the most famous long-distance runners in the world.

However, history has forgotten these two men, and in Running for Their Lives - in a story peopled with remarkable characters, unimaginable feats and tragic twists of fate - they only now receive the recognition they so richly deserve.

Reviews

  • A poignant account of unrecognised achievement

    Bryon Rogers, Spectator

  • Well-researched and entertaining... Whitaker's real achievement is to resurrect for recognition the careers of two genuine British sporting heroes

    Times Literary Supplement

  • Remarkable

    New Statesman

  • A timely reminder of the best that the sport can achieve

    The Sunday Times

  • Astonishing

    Reader's Digest

More from this Author

About the Author

Mark Whitaker

Mark Whitaker is founding partner of independent radio production company Square Dog Radio. Since 2003 he has produced, written and presented more than twenty documentaries for Radio 4. He has written for The Times, Guardian, Independent, Observer, New Statesman. He studied at Oxford and Cambridge and lives with his wife and two children in the hills of West Yorkshire.

Mark Whitaker

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