C. C. Pyles Amazing Foot Race, Geoff Williams
C. C. Pyles Amazing Foot Race, Geoff Williams
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C. C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race
The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America

Author: Geoff Williams

Narrator: Robertson Dean

Unabridged: 10 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/30/2013


Synopsis

Among the runners of C. C. Pyle's First Annual International
Transcontinental Foot Race were an assortment of underdogs, including
twenty-year-old Oklahoman and part Cherokee Andy Payne, who wanted to
win over the girl of his dreams and pay off the mortgage on his family's
farm; Paul "Hardrock" Simpson, who was in over his head but couldn't
let down his North Carolina hometown; Mike Kelly, a luckless boxer from
Indiana; Seattle's Ed Gardner, one of four black runners who encountered
bigotry; Charles Hart, a sixty-three-year-old Englishman hoping his
best days weren't behind him; and Frank Johnson, a middle-aged husband,
father, and steelworker from St. Louis who broke away from his humdrum
life and dared to do something different.

Newspaper and magazine journalist Geoff Williams details this historic
event and the colorful cast of characters involved, based on firsthand
accounts of those who were there and interviews from many living
descendants. C. C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race is a classic American story so astonishing and surreal that you have to hear it to believe it.

About Geoff Williams

Geoff Williams is a freelance journalist who regularly writes for U.S. News & World Report and has written for numerous other publications, including CNNMoney.com, Life and Reuters. He is also the author of Washed Away: How the Great Flood of 1913, America's Most Widespread Natural Disaster, Terrorized a Nation and Changed It Forever. He lives with his two daughters in Loveland, Ohio.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jan

Fantastic historical information on a real event ...set back in 1928, 199 men set out for a $25,000 prize. They were to run 3422 miles from Los Angeles to New York in 84 days. They ran 7 days a week, running the equivialent of 2-3 marathons each day!......more

Goodreads review by Vince

Great read about an amazing footrace. Heroic, amazing, historical.Seabiscuit but with people.......more

Goodreads review by Al

An interesting book on a 1928 trans continental foot race, organized by Showman CC Pyle. There are a lot of colorful characters and the hardships that the runners go through is quite intense, Football Star Red Grange is Pyle’s lieutenant and is charge a lot of he race while Pyle goes into hiding fro......more

Goodreads review by Steve

A fascinating and often funny account of a garrulous, charismatic and shady sports promoter who organizes a cross continent footrace in the age of endurance events. The characters portrayed are larger than life, often bizarre, and always interesting. The accounts of their challenges make it apparent......more