Six-day footraces in the post-pedestrianism era

Salvesen Greg ()
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Salvesen Greg: Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA

Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, 2019, vol. 15, issue 2, 117-127

Abstract: In a six-day footrace, competitors accumulate as much distance as possible on foot over 144 consecutive hours by circumambulating a loop course. Now an obscure event on the fringe of ultra running and contested by amateurs, six-day races and the associated sport of pedestrianism used to be a lucrative professional athletic endeavor. Indeed, pedestrianism was the most popular spectator sport in America c. 1874–c. 1881. We analyzed data from 277 six-day races spanning 37 years in the post-pedestrianism era (1981–2018). Men outnumber women 3:1 in six-day race participation. The men’s (women’s) six-day world record is 644.2 (549.1) miles and the top 4% achieve 500 (450) miles. Adopting the forecasting model of Godsey (2012), we predict a 53% (21%) probability that the men’s (women’s) world record will be broken within the next decade.

Keywords: pedestrianism; record forecasting; ultra running (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1515/jqas-2018-0005

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