Mike McNamara – the forgotten Australia
Ultrarunner
Mike McNamara set world records on the track, raced across America and
contested multiday snowshoe races. Arguably he was one of the greatest
Australian distance runners between the Wars. However, aside from his races in North America, until now very little has been known about
this enigmatic individual. Hopefully this article will give a fuller picture of
Mike McNamara and of his varied running career.
Michael Browne McNamara was born on the 11 April 1890 at Bollon, near St
George, Queensland,
Australia.
He was the fifth child and third son of James McNamara who had been born in Australia, and
his wife Caroline Louise James, who had been born in England. He looks to have been
given the middle name Browne in memory of his paternal grandmother. The family
home was at 28 Spring Street, Fortitude
Valley, a north eastern
suburb of central Brisbane
and the young Mike looks to have grown up in inner city Brisbane. He later recorded that he had an 8th
grade elementary education so had probably left school at the age of 13 to
bring in money to help feed the family of nine children.
By the time he
was in his early twenties he was working as a fireman in the town of Rockhampton, living at Bolsover Street not
far from the river. Rockhampton was
situated on the Fitzroy
River and was the major
port for Central Queensland. At this time it
was a fast growing city with a new rail link to the state capital Brisbane. His competitive career as a runner appears to
date from this period. He seems to have been a professional, perhaps aiming to
make a couple of pounds to supplement his fireman wages. However all the
newspapers reporting professional sports - pedestrianism, horse racing, boxing
etc look to be in Sydney, none in Queensland. The Sydney
newspaper, The Referee on the 14th
May 1913 reported under the headline PROFESSIONAL - Our Central Queensland correspondent,
writing from Rockhampton (10/5/13) says:— The half mile cycling event of £10 at
the Eight-hour Sports last Monday, was won by Thomas H. McDonald (15yds) from
E. Ricketts (40yds) and M. B. McNamara (65yds), after a very close finish.
[Eight hour sports were common – it just meant the programme of events lasted
eight hours, from 10am to 6pm for example.] Other details of the young M B McNamara’s
running, or indeed cycling career, are not known although he apparently claimed
to run races from 440 yards to 10 miles.
The First World War was to change his life. When he enlisted in the 15th
Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on the 5th November 1914 his service record describes him as being 5
foot 10 inches (1.78 metres) although
later documents claim 5 foot 10 ½ (1.79 metres),weighing 10 stone 2 pounds (142kg), with a fair
complexion, blue eyes and fair hair. His religion was given as Roman
Catholic. Arthur
Newton, who knew him well, wrote in 1931 “He is quite unusually modest, and
more than a bit reserved”.
Three-quarters
of the 15th Battalion AIF were
recruited as volunteers from Queensland,
and the rest from Tasmania.
McNamara was appointed initially to be based at Enogerra which was a Brisbane suburb. With the
13th, 14th and 16th Battalions 15th formed the 4th Brigade,
commanded by Colonel John Monash.
The
recruits from Queensland and Tasmanian were brought
together when the battalion trained together at Broadmeadows, Victoria.
After a short period of training, the battalion then embarked on the transport
ship SS Ceramic in late December 1914.
Mike McNamara
would have been in the army only about seven weeks when they left Melbourne.
The battalion
stopped briefly at Albany, Western Australia, and then sailed through
the Suez Canal. The 4th Brigade disembarked at Alexandria on 3 February 1915. Throughout
February and March an extensive period of training in the desert was
undertaken. It was on 10 April when the
15th Battalion went by train to Alexandria,
from where the troopships Australind and Seeang Bee took them to Gallipoli via
Mudros on the island
of Lemnos in Greece.
The 15th
Battalion was assigned to follow up the initial attack in the Gallipoli
campaign, landed at Anzac Cove on the afternoon of 25 April 1915 and was rushed
into the line on the left side of the beachhead. The thrust inland faltered and
the 15th became isolated and in serious danger. This is when McNamara was promoted to
sergeant when the unit’s sergeant was wounded.
The following day he too was wounded, in his left arm.
We have a first
hand account of the strain inflicted during this battle. “The noise was terrific – bullets always make a great noise
passing over a valley, but we found that each shell made a roar like an express
train. Machine-guns made it worse, and the heavy shells from the ships worse
still, and the echoes from the cliffs at the back of us redoubled it, until we
were nearly driven mad by the racket…Noise is not supposed to hurt anyone but
under those conditions the strain was terrible.” Captain James Durrant of the 13th
Battalion.
The wounded
McNamara was taken to the Kasr-el-Aini
Hospital Cairo on the Derflinger Hospital
ship. A fortnight later he rejoined the Battalion but perhaps he had returned
too soon. He seems to have picked up some kind of infection, an inflammation of
the joints. Such infections were far from unusual in the Gallipoli campaign.
Only during the fiercest fighting did the proportion of wounded men
evacuated from Anzac exceed the proportion being evacuated through
illness. Fly borne diseases combined
with the heat, dirt, shortage of water, poor diet, exhaustion and open wounds
were a bigger threat than the enemy.
Even when the sick and wounded were evacuated to Mudros, there was only
relief from the bullets and shrapnel.
The medical and nursing staffs were also plagued by diseases which
stemmed from the inadequate hygiene.
John Baker, a private
in the British Royal Marines recorded later “It was with great difficulty that
we obtained water as the only water we got had to be brought in petrol tanks
for the port of Alexandra. I remember the parched lips
and rusky throats whilst waiting for the water boats to appear on the horizon.
At last they were in sight. A loud cheer greeted them, then died away when the
enemy shells sunk them. That meant many anxious hours waiting for more. Every
hour seemed a year, we were parched, and our tongues hung out of our mouths.”
“food and water was a most vital question. I did not get anything for
practically a week”
McNamara
rejoined the Battalion on the 7th July. In the period from early June to early August
(from before McNamara had been taken ill), the battalion’s personnel were
almost completely replaced. A month
later an offensive was launched to break the stalemate with the Turkish forces.
The 15th Battalion was assigned to attack the Abdel Rahman Bair heights, known
to the Australians as "Hill 971”
It seems likely
that McNamara had
not fully recovered, or his immune system was
compromised by
his earlier wound and illness. Less than three weeks after rejoining the
Battalion, he was admitted to hospital suffering from a feeling of weakness and
debility, the next day he was transferred to Mudros Hospital suffering from a
bacterial infection in his lymph glands, this swiftly became a fever and within
a week he was diagnosed with bronchitis and taken to the hospital on Malta on
the hospital ship SS "Itonus". Ten days later McNamara embarked
hospital ship "Regina de Italia” for England where he was there admitted
to the 5th London General
Hospital.
He did not
really recover from this infection and some six months later the Surgeon General
of the AIF diagnosed cardiac
enlargement. McNamara embarked at Portland on the south
coast of England
for return to Australia
on the troop ship Themistocles.
He arrived back
in Australia
on the 25 June 1916
in Sydney
before catching leaving for Brisbane
later in the day.
On the 1st April 1918 Mike McNamara married Ethel Flora
Bell, (born 31 Jan 1891)
a woman of Irish parentage, and the 1919 electoral roll Fitzroy (Rockhampton), shows McNamara and his new wife living at the Sisal Hemp plantation at
Bajool working as a farmer. It is possible that this new work was as a
soldier settler.
What happened
between 1919 and 1924 when McNamara next makes a documented appearance is
unknown. Perhaps some speculation can reasonably be made based on his much later
occupation as a poultry farmer.
During the later
stages of the First World War, consideration had been given in Australia at
both a national and state level as to what to do with the returning
soldiers. The scheme was hatched that
they should be encouraged to become “soldier settlers”. Such settlers would be expected to clear and
prepare the land allocated and were required to work at least 48 hours per
week. Training would be given to men with no farming experience, and money to
purchase stock and equipment was available on what were said to be reasonable
repayment terms. Men who were less fit were encouraged to apply for land, and
to consider poultry farming or bee keeping.
It is possible
that later in the early 1920s McNamara opted for poultry farming, as I said,
based on his later interest in the industry.
However over the next few years the soldier settler scheme began to
unravel. The Brisbane Courier in 1920 concluded “instead of the settlement
becoming a success end in a ghastly failure. .The returned soldiers… cannot
afford to maintain... the few
unproductive acres....They want their farms to keep them, but, according to
their own showing, they have been keeping the farms, and doing it by hard work
and by using their small capital, now fast nearing its end.”
A later Royal
Commission identified four main reasons for the failure of soldier settlers.
These were: the selection of
inexperienced settlers, lack of capital, the size of blocks of land allocated
and the prices received for agricultural products. There were other major
problems for those who had opted to become poultry farmers. In late 1922 again
the Brisbane Courier recorded that “the average price of eggs being about 1/-
(12 d) per dozen. It cost 10 ½ d to produce a dozen eggs at present,
calculating only the food. That left very little for labour” Earlier that year
poultry farmers had complained that “They
were now paying 80 per cent, more for feed than hitherto.” The reason for the increase in price was the
severest drought that Australia
had experienced for two decades. In Queensland,
as elsewhere in Australia
there was failure of wheat crops, dying sheep and cattle and disastrous
bushfires. (Morning Bulletin Rockhampton January 1923)
It was against
this background that McNamara may have heard of a talk by Mr. V. Kappler of the
National Utility Poultry Breeders' Association in America. The talk to the Queensland
Poultry Breeders Association was widely reported in the Australian press. Kappler painted a very rosy picture of the
state of American poultry farming.
Assuming that McNamara had become a poultry farmer, it may well have
been this which was to prompt McNamara to leave the “ghastly failure” of the
soldier settler scheme and to seek a new start in the business in America. I must
stress once again, we do not as yet have any evidence that McNamara was a
poultry farmer at this stage in his life.
The McNamaras emigrated from Sydney in April 1924.
They sailed on the steamship SS Euripides which regularly made the Australia-England
run via the Cape of Good Hope. Michael Browne McNamara’s occupation was
listed as labourer. They arrived in Southampton
on the 27th April and less than three months later they resumed
their journey from that port to Quebec
in Canada
on the SS Melita of the Canadian Pacific Steamship Lines. This time McNamara listed his occupation as
“farmer”.
What McNamara and his wife did in England during
those three months is unknown. However it can be surmised that they went to see
McNamara’s mother’s family. It is possible that they lived near Colchester in Essex. (A
Caroline Louise James was born in the Colchester registration district area in
1855.) It looks like they lived in a
rural area and it is possible that they were poultry farmers, possibly turkeys.
On arriving in Quebec, the McNamaras
stated they intended to be permanent residents and planned to become
farmers. However in just over a month
they had travelled via Toronto
to Windsor and
crossed into the United
States at Detroit. Whether they had been looking for a
farm to rent in Canada,
or whether they had been seeking an easier way into the United States
isn’t clear. In the early and
mid-nineteenth century many immigrants to the United States came via Canada because
Canadian ports of entry did not have the same regulations that U.S. ports did.
Coming to the U.S.
through Canada
was easier.
On the 29th May 1924
the McNamaras made the border crossing at Detroit.
Their stated destination was Madison,
Missouri and Mike McNamara’s
intention was to become a farmer. They reportedly had $900 on them.
Once again Mike
McNamara disappears from history. He was
eventually to wind up in New York City
but he does not appear on the city census of 1925. Possibly he did try poultry farming in the
Mid-West, however by 1928 he was in New York. Reputedly just
before the Trans-America race was announced the failure of a partner he had backed with all his money
left him close to penury.
We have not managed to discover any
details of McNamara’s
running and walking
career in Australia – neither
professional nor amateur. However he must have had some experience as a runner
or walker in order to contemplate entering a race which would cover the
3,423-miles from Los Angeles
to New York.
The suspicion
must be that in Australia
he did not have the time, energy or inclination to develop his
running talent. Remember at the age of 24, he had joined the Australian
Imperial Force and soon after been sent overseas. There had been no potential coach to spot his talent and
persuade him to commit to the sport. With no one to push him, McNamara’s talent
remained largely hidden until the pressure cooker of the 1928 race.
The Great
American Transcontinental Footrace was to be run across America from Los Angeles to New York, via Chicago, to promote the
opening of Route 66. A training camp was
set up at the Ascot Speedway on the eastern edge of Los Angeles, California.
Runners were required to report to camp by February 12th, 1928 “for final conditioning
for the race.” It was reported that there were over 400 initial entrants. Fewer
than 200 reported at Ascot. Among them was
Herbert Hedeman, a fellow Australian, who
hand been living in one room in New York with his wife
and five children. When the Official Program was printed there were 249
entrants listed. On March 4,
1928, when the race started, there were 199 runners who actually
crossed the starting line.
The runners were
subjected to a strict training schedule that started at 6 a.m. After breakfast they ran 25 to 50 miles
to prepare for the promised 40 to 75 miles a day. Lunch was served at noon and the afternoon was also
devoted to more training. Dinner was served at 6 p.m. and the runners were allowed to relax and have
their injuries treated before lights out at 9 p.m. The official program called the arrangements for
feeding the runners a “traveling cafeteria deluxe." They were promised
eggs, cereal, toast and fruit for breakfast and “soup, salad, roast or boiled
meat, several vegetables, both cooked and raw, a dessert and all the milk, tea
and coffee desired” for dinner. Harry Sheare, runner #123, told the newspaper:
“Pyle pulled the best one three weeks before we started. He notified all
runners that they must assemble in Ascot
Park, Los Angeles, to train and then for three
weeks charged each man 50 cents per night for bed and 50 cents for each meal.”
The race started
at Ascot Speedway in Los Angeles
and finished in Madison
Square Garden
in New York City.
199 runners left Los Angeles,
California on March 4th, 1928 at 3:30 p.m. 55 runners finished on May 26th, 1928. Only men
were allowed to enter the race. The race took 84 days to run from coast to
coast. The Bunion Derby followed Route 66 from Los Angeles to Chicago. From Chicago to New York City the race ran wherever the
promoter, C.C. Pyle, could get the town to pay a fee. Dr. K.H. Begg, a
prominent medical expert, predicted that the race would take five to ten years
off the runners’ lives.
The runners ran
an average of 40 miles a day, nearly the equivalent of two marathons. The
shortest distance they ran was the first day, 17 miles from Ascot Speedway in Los Angeles to Puente, California.
The longest distance was 74.6 miles from Waverly, New York to Deposit, New York, the 79th day. The race ran from California through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
New Jersey
and New York.
The race covered a total of 3,423.3 miles (5505 km).
During the race
itself, the runners’ times were clocked daily. All runners started at the same
time and they had to reach a designated checkpoint. As each runner crossed the
checkpoint, his time was logged. Each day’s time was added to the last. The
fastest cumulative time would win the race.
In the 1920’s
amateur athletes represented the purity of the sport, and the Olympic games
exemplified this spirit. The runners who entered the Transcontinental Foot Race
had little concern for their amateur standing, considering the chance to win
$25,000 well worth the loss of their amateur status. To put things in
perspective, the Ford Motor Company was paying factory workers $1,200 per year
at the time. The winner’s prize thus represented 20 years' wages.
The runners
ranged in age from 16 to 63 and came from all over the world. Some of the runners
left jobs to run the race; others ran just to be able to say they had done so,
but for the most part the runners were men who had nothing to lose.
The early
leaders who pushed the pace were soon forced to retire. The more cautious had
to cope with the heat, the burning sands of the Mojave
Desert, with few drinks available from the race. Those with trainers accompanying them were at
an advantage. In his book on the Pyle races, Harry Berry recorded that “It was
not hard to tell if a man has taken part in the 1928 race. A look at his right
shoulder and ear, was normally sufficient. Running from West to East, the sun
beat down on that one side. It blistered exposed skin within the day. These
burst and became sores, and were enlarged, leaving permanent scars.”
From desert the
route moved in to Arizona
and the Rocky Mountains. The road climbed from
an altitude of 2,000 to 5,000 feet in just two days. The 52 mile stage into Peach Springs AZ
on the eleventh day marked a crisis point for many of the runners.
Until that point
runners who did not complete the day’s stage were allowed to go back the next
day to where they had stopped and then carry on. Now runners who failed to
reach the checkpoint by midnight
were disqualified. Many runners withdrew at that point, reducing the field to
one half the original numbers. McNamara was among that number “unable to continue”. His lack of long term
training meant that he had never been in contention at any point, he had
struggled to survive. But the hard work he had put in would show dividends
later.
At the finish
Pyle did not have the money to pay the promised prize money. Fortunately the
boxing promoter, Tex Rickard advanced Pyle $40,000 and the millionaire father
of one of the runner, Harry Gunn, made up the balance.
At the finish of
the 1928 race, the now professional runners looked around to find some means of
making a livelihood. Tex Rickard sought to recover his money by putting on a 26
hour team race. There were forty runners, of whom sixteen completed the race. Among them was a team of Mike McNamara and
Alfred Middlestate. They finished out of the money in 13th place.
The two
Australian veterans of the 1928 race, McNamara and Herb Hedemann, decided to
pool their resources and built their own motorised caravan. Their financial
circumstances did not allow for any luxuries.
However I suspect that the partnership between the two Australians also
benefited McNamara as a runner. Hedemann was a vastly experienced professional
runner who had won the world mile title, beating Hans Holmer, in 1913. In 1924
Herb Hedemann had written to an Australian newspaper, from South Africa
where he was then living, stating “I claim to be the best coach of an athlete,
especially flat running… I can guarantee my ability, as can both
Natal
and Transvaal Athletic bodies, for whom I have done service” and claimed
“thirty years' study, experience, and knowledge of pedestrianism”. Arguably McNamara was getting more than a
partner, he was getting a very experienced coach.
However he would
benefit not just from Herb Hedemann’s advice, to a considerable degree the 1928
and 1929 Trans-America races were a university for distance training. Not only
was there the like of Willi Kolehmainen, who had helped guide his brother
Hannes to Olympic glory, there were numerous other Finns and Swedes, then among
the most successful distance runners in the world. Allied to those was the like
of Olympians Estonian Juri Lossman, American August Fager, Canadian Philip
Granville and of course, Arthur Newton. Not surprisingly Newton’s partner Pete Gavuzzi became a
successful coach in the 1930s. The evenings after a long stage would have meant
long discussions about the one thing they all had in common – long distance
running. Ideas and experiences would
studied and dissected; the less experienced runners eager to gain an edge which
might bring financial success in the professional races.
Up until the 1929 Trans-America race McNamara had not
been a major force as a distance runner. He needed the high mileage of the two
Pyle races to get himself into shape. The partnership with Hedemann plus the
unrelenting hard daily mileage of the 1929 race made him a great runner. Obviously
as a veteran of the 1928 race in preparation for the 1929 race he had trained
hard, simulating the daily mileage that would face him, but it was
more likely the 78 days of racing distances from 22 to 82 miles, across
all kinds of terrain and weather conditions, built him into the strong,
versatile distance runner that we later see.
Pete Gavuzzi was
later to tell me “The first race was an amateur event. The second was
professional.”
The Australian pairing were much more in evidence in the
second race. Hedemann won the 5th stage of 37 miles
from Wilmington
to Havre de Grace in 4:44:45
to lead the race on cumulative time. McNamara made a more cautious start but by
the 16th day he was lying in 8th place, one ahead of Hedemann. They were to
stay in these positions for stage after stage, with McNamara moving up to 7th
by Day 40 with Hedemann in 9th. The two men seldom won a stage, but were solid
and consistent.
A good day was
on the 56th stage when Guisto Umek won the 34.4 miles from Van Horn to Sierra
Blanca with Hedemann and McNamara in joint
third in 4:58:10. Hedemann pushed
harder over the next ten days and moved up to 8th, but was still around 10
hours behind McNamara. They were to finish in those positions. McNamara in 7th
and in the money, with an elapsed time of 627:45:28 and Hedemann in 8th
in 631:23:48. The expected prize money of $US 2,000 and $US 1,750 respectively,
never materialised.
With no
likelihood of another trans-continental race forthcoming after Pyle’s financial
disaster in 1929, the `Bunioneers’, as they had been called, had to seek other
avenues of endeavour. They quickly formed an information network, primarily in North America, keeping each other advised of potential
races in which they might make some money. In the meantime most of them drifted
back to their old occupations.
In July 1929
a two man team 6 Day race was arranged at the Ascot Speedway Stadium, Los Angeles. The aim was
to surpass the mark made by the French team of Orphee and Cabot set in 1909 at
the Madison Square Gardens.
Johnny Salo and Sammy Richman emerged as the winners, with 749.5 miles, ahead
of George Rehayn and Niels Nielson with 642.5 miles. The runners each received
$5, less than a cent a mile. Herb Hedemann ran with another Pyle professional,
Pat Harrison. They finished with 424 miles. That may have been Hedemann’s last race;
he had a wife and five children to support. He appears to have made his way
back to New York
and later worked from a real estate broker. McNamara was to stick with the
professional running.
Later that
year two man teams were pitted against teams of horses in another 6 Day race,
this time indoors in Philadelphia.
The runners were to run alternately four hours a piece, as were the horses. The
runners set off at seven miles an hour, the horses, who were on a track outside
the runners, were some fifteen miles ahead at the end of the first day.
By the close
of the second day, the runners and the horses were on level pegging, but the
horses were beginning to get restive, going around and round the small indoor
track. The jockeys were finding that despite their best efforts the horses
would drop into a walk for a few laps. Eventually the horses refused even to
trot, and just walked around listlessly.
Unknown to
the spectators, new horses were then substituted, but soon they too ended up in
exactly the same state, and once again had to be replaced, this time by the
original horses. By this time the runners were firmly in the lead.
The winners
were Salo with a new partner Joie Ray, who had originally turn professional
after being recruited by Tex Rickard to run in indoor marathons against Olympic
marathon champion Boughera El Ouafi. Salo and Ray’s final distance was 523.3
miles, ahead of Newton
and Gavuzzi on 521.25 miles, with the horses Redwing and Fleetwood third with
510.5 miles. The first two teams of runners were to receive $500 per man, but
the failure of the horses had meant a greatly reduced attendance on the last
two nights, and thus a reduction in the runners’ fees of 25 per cent was
negotiated.
In the United States
professional ultrarunning was dying. However in Canada, there was an opportunity
for trained ultra performers to make money – snow shoe racing. The first
snowshoe races in Canada
had been promoted in 1926, the first from Montreal
to Swinton over 300 miles, and won by a 47 year old Eugene Cloucette. This
proved so popular that in 1930 the Peter Dawson Marathon was held over 500
miles. This was a team event, and Newton
and Gavuzzi entered, as did Ray and Salo, along with Dilks, Souminen, Granville
and Mike McNamara Much to the disappointment of the local snowshoe enthusiasts,
the winners were Newton
and Gavuzzi, from Ray and Salo.
Earlier in 1930
in a 15 miles track race, won by Joie Ray in 1:41:50 McNamara
had finished fifth in an event way below his best distance, out of contention
from the first mile.
In August that
year, McNamara entered 26 hour team race Men v Horses at De Lorimier in Quebec. His partner was the diminutative Ollie Wanttinen. Their team covered about 225km
during the 26
hours, beating the horse Little
Brother, ridden by Russell Kingsley, who finished eight miles behind. Four horses abandoned
the race. McNamara and Wanttinen had beaten perhaps more fancied runners
such as Edward Fabre, Johnny Salo and
Jole Ray.
In February 1931
in the 200 miles 1st February 200 miles Ushers Green Stripe snowshoe
race with 8 daily stages. McNamara, raised in the heat of Queensland, felt
unprepared for the cold of Quebec. It was reported “He has a sweater and tuque
woven in one piece, the tuque being so constructed that it covers his face
entirely, except for a small aperture over the eyes, and a breathing space.” He
also had heavy coloured googles made, which fitted over tuque, to protect his
eyes from the glare of the unrelenting whiteness of the snow, as well as giving
some defence aginst the cold and driving snow. He also had specially knitted
trunks and underwear, and a huge number of socks. It was said the combined
weight of all this was twenty pounds – just under 10kg! Despite all these
precautions. McNamara was
led in for the last four miles suffering from snow blindness by Ollie Wanttinen,
who was
a fellow competitor on the first stage.
McNamara seems to have recovered quickly from the
snow blindness. On the 6th stage he finished fifth, ahead of Wantinen and Joie Ray.
Reportedly he later won a 25 mile stage which prompted the headline - AUSTRALIAN WINS IN SNOWSHOE RACE.
It was to
be in April 1931 that McNamara’s real abilities were shown. Arthur Newton
arranged a 24 hour race indoors so he could have a crack at Charles
Rowell’s world professional record. The race was on a specially constructed track of 13 laps to the
mile. To help prevent dizziness, the `square’ track had banked corners. The
runners all wore crepe-rubber soled shoes.
Newton collected together a field of seasoned veteran professionals as
well as himself and Pete Gavuzzi, the other runners invited were McNamara, Earl
Lin Dilks, from Newcastle, Pennsylvania, Paul Simpson, from Burlington, North
Carolina, Phil Granville, a Canadian Afro-American from Hamilton, Ontario, and
Tom Ellis, a Canadian from Hamilton.
Newton later wrote “Sundry details had to be worked out before we stepped
on the track; for not only was the twenty-four record to be attacked but also
that for forty miles. The latter was advertised and specially included because
Gavuzzi fancied his chances were much better in a distance he was thoroughly
used to than in the prolonged grind which was so much beyond anything he had
yet attempted. At the same time it was, of course, possible that any one of us
might strike misfortune in the shape of stitch or muscle trouble, sufficient to
put an end to any hope of world’s records. So we had to arrange that at least
two of us would be ready to tackle either the forty miles or the twenty-four
hours. That meant that McNamara and I would have to hurry somewhat for the
first twenty or twenty-five miles, after which, if Gavuzzi appeared to be safe,
we could settle down more gently for the longer event.”
“It was a rare
thing indeed for Gavuzzi to meet with trouble during a race, but he managed it
this time. He was moving splendidly and apparently had the forty-mile mark “in
the bag” as the Americans say, when just over twenty miles McNamara and I found
we were beginning to lap him instead of his lapping us as had been the case up
till now. Another half-mile and the trouble was obvious: he had to retire with
muscle injury in a leg.”
McNamara took up
the chase for the forty mile record. Newton recorded that “he opened up and
raced around that small track – thirteen laps to the mile – in a really
astonishing way: he made up so much time that at thirty miles he was two
minutes twenty seconds inside the professional world’s record for the distance.
As he passed me again just after this he informed me that he was still quite
good enough to continue for the next ten miles and went on at the same pace to
obliterate the forty-mile mark as well. Never have I seen such brilliant
distance running as McNamara then put up: at forty miles he was some three
minutes ahead of the world’s record time again, and he was a man of forty-one!”
McNamara then
deliberately slowed but still reached fifty miles in 6h. 7m 30s. At 100 miles his time was 14:09:45. He then came off for a bath, he then needed a
massage and as Newton
put it “his earlier efforts would not permit of such an abnormally extended
programme: his legs were giving in, and at 110 miles he was obliged to stop and
retire.”
Newton got his world indoor 24 hour record covering 152 miles 540
yards/245.113km
Mike McNamara’s
new world track records were for 30 miles – 3:13:29 and 40 miles – 4:31:31. McNamara’s
14:09:45 also deserves
closer examination. Only the phenomenal Charlie Rowell had run a faster 100
miles indoors – 13:57:13
in 1880 and 13:26:09 two
years later, and Rowell had not set records at shorter distances enroute!
As an Australian
professional track 100 mile mark, it was to last nearly forty years until George Perdon ran 12:25:09 in Melbourne in 1970.
It was to be 15
years until Jack Holden, a winner of the European Marathon Championships, improved
on McNamara’s time at 30 miles and 21 years until Derek Reynolds surpassed his
forty mile mark. These marks were set in much shorter races; neither runner had
to continue to 100 miles and beyond. It was to be 44 years until a runner
attempted a similar feat when the Briton Cavin Woodward set 50 mile and 100km
world records before carrying on to 100 miles.- also setting a world record at
that distance. [4:58:53/6:25:28/11:38:54]
Interestingly
the plan of campaign mentioned by Newton
before the start of the Hamilton
race was based on the assumption that either he or McNamara could cover over
150 miles in 24 hours if necessary to fulfil the contract. This gives a good
indication of the Australian’s abilities. In another of his books, Races and
Training, written in 1949, Newton
wrote that he “had confidently reckoned on a fierce battle with McNamara over
the last twenty or thirty miles”.
The Hamilton race did not
attract many spectators, and the `show’ made a loss and cost Newton £200. The runners got a `fee’ of just
$10 and their expenses paid.
In August 1931
came the 500 mile Peter Dawson Relay. The former elite marathon runner, Joie
Ray had now teamed up with McNamara, obviously seen as the emerging distance
star among the Pyle runners after his Hamilton
performance. They were tipped as the favourites to win, but perhaps McNamara
still had the Hamilton
race in his legs, and he had problems with them from Day 1. However he and Ray still finished third
behind Newton
and Gavuzzi and August Fager (a former
Olympic athlete and local Quebec
runner Johnny Jokela.
Newton reported in one of his letters in 1931 that McNamara was training
every day on snowshoes on grass and was “in my opinion, the only man who has a
decent chance of beating Hoey” (the
winner of the previous year’s snow shoe race).
Hoey seems to
have won the 1932 race but in February 1933 the Professional Snowshoe
championships were held in Quebec. The race was dominated by Finnish immigrants
and local Quebec
runners used to the conditions, but McNamara held his own finishing 8th
in a 162 miles. He was third on the 27
miles third stage, fifth behind three Scandinavians and a French Canadian on
the fourth stage and on the fifth stage
was fourth
behind three former Scandinavians.
The final 12 mile stage saw him finish
sixth, to finish in eighth place overall and in the prize money.
Interesting in the local papers the first names of the runners was
commonly used. However McNamara was always referred to as M B McNamara. As Newton had commented “He is quite unusually modest, and more than a bit
reserved”. Among the Pyle runners he was
known as Mac and in a letter he wrote to Earl Lin Dilks in 1930 which was
addressed to Earl , he signed it Mac. In
those days it was not uncommon for initials to be used in results and nicknames
were used, first names being reserved almost exclusively for family use.
The Great
Depression was to force the end of this short-lived experiment in professional
athletics. McNamara was forced to find another career, which is the tough days
of a massive economic recession was not easy. In the 1930 census he is recorded
as being an unemployed handyman, but over the coming years he was able to turn
this skill into a more permanent job. Later we find references to him being a superintendent. A building superintendent
was, and is, the manager responsible for repairing and maintaining a residential building.
McNamara would have been expected to take care of small repairs and other
problems such as minor leaks or blockages, the heating system, and the security
of the building. If there are major repairs required they will co-ordinate and
supervise the work of the contractors.
In 1932 McNamara’s
father died in
Brisbane and
five years later so did his mother.
There is no evidence that he returned to Australia
during this period, but an intriguing journey took place in 1937. The Brainerd
Daily Dispatch. Minnesota
in April 1937 carried the headline : BRITISHER GETS TURKEY EGGS FROM AITKIN TO IMPROVE ENGLISH FLOCKS. The story
was that an English poultry fancier, M B McNamara had travelled to Aitken in Minnesota to acquire
turkey eggs to take with him to England
when he sailed to England
the following week. How McNamara had known of the Aitken poultry farm is
unknown, but it does suggest that he had previous experience in the industry in
the United States.
A week later Mike McNamara and his wife Ethel
set sail from New York,
arriving in Southampton in England on the
10th of May. In London they proposed to
stay with Arthur Newton since they gave his address 9 Cottingham Chase,
Ruislip.
It is not
absolutely clear why the McNamaras travelled to England and the turkey eggs
add to the
mystery. If his mother’s family kept turkeys, and the eggs were a gift to his
relatives, this might explain the eggs.
The leading South African ultrarunner, Hardy Ballington had travelled to England to
attempt to break Newton’s
London to Brighton and Bath Road 100 mile records. Arthur Newton was probably the person who
had initiated this and
he had probably
contact McNamara and invited him across.
During both
events McNamara travelled in the same car as Newton, and acted as handler for Ballington,
running along side him when necessary despite being dressed in everyday
clothes. In appalling conditions
Ballington took a second off of Newton’s previous best over the London to
Brighton course (5:53:42) but in better conditions took over an hour off of
Newton’s time on the Bath Road run (13:21:19) At some stage photographs of McNamara, Ballington and
Newton posed in running gear was taken. The 100 mile run took place in early July and
the McNamaras returned to New York in late August. Whether they visited turkey or other poultry
farms in that time is not known.
The possibility
is that the trip in 1937 was not just about the London to Brighton
and Bath Road
races. This could explain why Ethel came as well. They were maybe looking into
the possibilities of poultry farming in the UK.
Perhaps they had already made contact with English poultry farmers and
were bringing the turkey eggs as a way partly of funding their journey and also
of exploring possibilities of poultry farming in England. The assumption must be that it did not work
out. But the dream obviously persisted.
McNamara’s
involvement in the London to Brighton and the Bath 100 mile, travelling across
the Atlantic, does raise the question as to whether he was involved in coaching
and handling distance runners in New York.
Both Arthur Newton and Pete Gavuzzi subsequently coached other notable
runners. Unfortunately the runners who might have been able to help give
information on this are no longer around;
however one distinct possibility as to someone he might have coached is
Mike O’Hara, a prolific marathon runner, who ran his first marathon in 1937.
O’Hara lived in New York,
and, one would have suspected, would have moved in the same Irish Catholic environment
as McNamara. The first club O’Hara ran for was St Anselm’s AC. O’Hara even latterly was one of the first
modern US
ultra runners and was running
marathons until the 1960s. It would be surprising if the two had not known each
other, O’Hara ran over fifty marathons whilst McNamara was living in New York.
By the time of
the 1940 US
census McNamara was recorded as getting $1200 a year (about the same as Ford
Motor factory workers were earning.) Since building superintendents often got
cheaper rent or even free rent, in addition to their salary, depending on the
size of the building, McNamara may have been able to build some savings to
enable him to make choices to suit him in his later years. Neither he nor his wife had become
naturalised Americans by then.
By the early
1950s when Mike McNamara reached his early sixties, they decided to move back
to Australia. They appear on the 1954 Queensland electoral roll as living on Settlement Road,
The Gap, which is a suburb of Brisbane. McNamara is recorded as being a poultry
farmer. This was to continue until at least 1963, but by then he had moved to Kaloma Road.
Shortly before
he died he seems to have made a request to see his WWI service records for some
reason. He died in September that year and was buried at Nudgee Cemetery.
Ethel also died that year. We have found no evidence that the couple had any
children, but three of Mike McNamara’s siblings out lived him and probably
handled the estate when he died.
Michael Browne
McNamara was one of the most notable Australian distance runners between the
two world wars. One of the most knowledgeable experts on distance running in
this period, Arthur Newton, wrote of him in 1931 that “Marathon
men will be well advised to study his action, if they wish to make themselves
good enough to be candidates for their country at the next Olympics.”
What could
McNamara have achieved at the marathon?
An estimate of a likely marathon time - even pace based on his 30 mile
time gives 2:49:19 – but remember he had to accelerate over the ten miles from
twenty miles onwards to make that 30 mile time.
2:49 would rank him in the top 60 marathon runners in the world for
1931 Aside from Roland Bateman in 1928
in Sydney [2:45:51.4] it looks unlikely that any other Australian had run
faster by 1931 His 30 mile was a split
in a race where he covered 110 miles in 24 hours and 14:09:45 for 100 miles....
Running the two Trans-Continental races meant that the Pyle runners (including
McNamara) were the best trained distance runners in the world. The marathon was
too short. But Mike McNamara showed their potential over the shorter distances.
But M B McNamara
was not just a fast runner, he was versatile.
The two Trans-Continental races, particularly that of 1929, showed his
abilities in long point to point races across demanding terrain, which contrasted sharply with his world
records at 30 and 40 miles set on a small, indoor track followed by the drive
to push on to 100 miles following those exertions. Add to that his capacity to
challenge even experienced snowshoe performers, conditioned from childhood to
cover distance across icy snow, and his abilities reveal their rare qualities.
Arthur Newton
wrote of Michael Browne McNamara that he was “quite
unusually modest, and more than a bit reserved”. In 1930, despite having
run two Trans-America races and other professional races, he still described
himself in the 1930 US
census as an unemployed handyman. Perhaps it was his innate modesty that led to
Mike McNamara becoming Australia’s
forgotten ultrarunner.
-0-
I would like to thanks Michael Peters for his great help in researching M B
McNamara’s life and Paul Foisy for his support in piecing together his snowshoe
career in Quebec.
