JFK encouraged American citizens to take the '50-Mile Challenge'

JFK helped start the 50-mile 'craze.'

Melody Pipkin swung by the office on Monday to tell me about how the Trap Trail 24 endurance trail run turned out on Saturday and Sunday and by all accounts it was a big success. The event attracted competitors from around the country, including some from as far away as New York and Indiana. In fact, the event was such a big success that organizers are already talking about having another one next year.

For those of you unfamiliar with these types of races, participants try to see how much distance they can cover in a given length of time. The local event last weekend was split up into four divisions with contestants signing up to run for three, six, 12 and 24 hours. Most marathon runners can run the length of a marathon (26.2 miles) in less than five hours, so just imagine putting one foot in front of the other for 24 hours.

Two contestants over the weekend actually covered 100 miles in less than 24 hours. These two men have no doubt spent countless hours training to run such long distances, which most people would consider a physical impossibility. The furthest that any of the female contestants covered was 52 miles, which is almost a double marathon.

Not bragging, but I’ve run one marathon before and that was years ago. Take it from me when I say that it takes a lot of time to prepare for a race of that distance, and the training runs can be very time consuming. I can only imagine how much time it takes to get ready to run 100 miles, which is basically almost four marathons.

Melody was also telling me about another “ultra-distance” run that’s coming up in November, the Cottonmouth 100. This event will be held in Milton, Fla. on Nov. 23. In this event, contestants can “run” either 100 miles or 50 miles.

I’m actually sort of tempted to try the 50-mile event. I was telling Melody that this reminded me of something I’d read about several years ago called the “TR/JFK 50-Mile Challenge.” During his presidency, to get the military in fighting shape, Roosevelt issued a directive requiring that the officers of all branches be able to complete “a march of 50 miles, to be made in three consecutive days and in a total of 20 hours, including rests, the march on any one day to be during consecutive hours.”

After Roosevelt left office, this fitness program fell out of practice, but John F. Kennedy revived it by issuing the same challenge to civilians. He actually issued this challenge in an article that he wrote for Sports Illustrated, challenging citizens to do something more physically demanding to get in shape. This filtered down into many schools who worked recommendations from Kennedy into their physical education programs.

Under Kennedy’s rules for the “50-Mile Challenge,” you had to cover 50 miles in 20 hours. You can do this by walking 2.5 miles per hour, which is a pretty slow pace when you think about it. When I put it that way, I feel like I could pull it off, but that’s easy to say sitting here in my soft chair in the well air-conditioned offices of The Evergreen Courant.