The Autobiography of Clarence DeMar: Part |

The early life—the struggles, the challenges, and the dreams—of the man who went on to become a Boston Marathon legend.

by Clarence DeMar

To call Clarence DeMar legendary is an understatement. Although there have been other names more recently associated with the famed Boston Marathon and therefore more recognizable to modern marathon watchers, not even “Boston Billy” Rodgers’s name has the ring that DeMar’s does. Clarence DeMar won the Boston Marathon a record seven times. Historians of the marathon feel DeMar could have won the race as many as 10 times had he not, at the height of his prowess, taken years off to lead his Boy Scout troop on springtime expeditions to the New England woods.

DeMar was a young man driven to hard work and driven away from ostentation. Early on, he found more joy in running than in walking and wove his joy into his daily life, running to and from work, the precursor of the twice-a-day running workout.

A simple, devoutly religious man, when he came to the task of writing his autobiography, DeMar was typically self-depreciating. His book Marathon is a study in understatement. Sentences like “Being well again, I practiced a great deal, cautiously and without exertion, aiming to gain the victory on April 19.1 didn’t allow any suggested engagements to turn me aside from the main objective” are magnificently simple and characteristic of the man.

DeMar’s life story—told in his own words—was originally published in 1937 and then revived in 1981 by The New England Press of Shelburne, Vermont. In an age where sports autobiographies seethe with self-aggrandizement, and athletes need professional writers to make them sound at least semiliterate, DeMar wrote his self-effacing autobiography by himself. In today’s artificially induced, complex world, the lessons we can take from DeMar’s life are simple: focus on your goals, work hard, lead a good life, and save your energy by allowing others to sing your praises for you. Without further ado, and with a shared sense of excitement, we present Clarence DeMar’s Marathon.—Rich Benyo

© 1998 by The New England Press

FOREWORD

For me, the Boston Marathon is the most wondrous athletic event in our sporting calendar, with the World Series, the Masters, and Wimbledon lagging well to the rear. Clarence DeMar, who began running in the early part of this century, won seven Bostons. He had 15 finishes in the top ten. No other runner is close to that record. In the 1920s when distance running was seen as the eccentric pastime of over-winded loonies, DeMar was as heroic in his sport as Bobby Jones, Bill Tilden, and Jack Dempsey were in theirs.

Until now, copies of Marathon have been rare. It was first published in 1937 by Stephen Daye Press of Brattleboro, Vermont, which has vanished from the book scene. I came across the book when I spent a weekend with Johnny [A.] Kelley on Cape Cod a while back, having gone there to talk with the spry Irishman about his preparations for his 50″ Boston.

When Johnny went off to bed at the athletically proper hour of 9:00 p.m., I took the DeMar book and read through its 156 pages before turning off my table light at 1:00 a.m. Marathon is a masterly mix of running lore, personal insight, and wry reflections about the preboom days when distance men truly were the lonely ones.

DeMar ran 34 Bostons in all. When he died of cancer in 1958 after 49 years of competition behind him, the doctors still couldn’t figure him out. An autopsy gave them a hint. In the New England Journal of Medicine, the nation’s most respected medical magazine, Dr. Paul Dudley White wrote of the DeMar autopsy report: “Strenuous physical effort, so far as is known, does not adversely affect the heart. Few athletes have had such a long period of physical effort during their lifetime as DeMar.”

In his private life, DeMar worked as a compositor. He taught Sunday school at his Baptist church in Melrose, Massachusetts, and had a troop of Boy Scouts. “These activities,” he said in simple words that many of today’s high-fever runners need to hear, “kept me from becoming overspecialized as a marathoner. . .. A sense of balance and proportion is necessary.”

DeMar writes poignantly of his feelings when his talent was slipping away, a time that coincided with the rethinking of some of his earlier convictions: “No longer does my success (in marathons) always depend on the amount of training I do. Frequently, a rest and just a little practice cause me to make a better showing. … No longer can I criticize the man who likes his beer and cigarettes while training. The older I get, the less dogmatic and sure I become… .”

DeMar never took up boozing and smoking, being a Baptist among Boy Scouts, for one thing. Nor did he ever care about making money from his sport, much less marketing himself. In 1911, some race officials offered to pay his

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Clarence DeMar in 1928.

cab fare from Melrose to Worcester for a race. “‘Nope,” he said. But in his narrative he wonders about his youthful idealism. “Fifteen years later,” he recalled, “I would have taken the money and given my Boy Scouts a good time, and 25 years later I’d have taken it and fed my family, rationalizing that I had spent lots more than this windfall from my own pocket during the times I attended the Olympic Games.”

The morning after I read DeMar’s little classic, I mentioned to Johnny Kelley that he had a treasure. He agreed.

Long after many of the current running books are forgotten—and deservedly so for some of them—Marathon will continue to be in the front of the pack. That’s where Clarence DeMar always was himself.

. —Colman McCarthy Reena July 27, 1981

CHAPTER ONE: BACKGROUND FOR RUNNING

An article in a Cincinnati paper once stated that I could run down a jack-rabbit when I was a boy on Indian Hill, near that city. This was hardly a fact. As a boy I was about the slowest moving youngster in school. I did enter quite a few Fourth of July and Sunday School picnic races, but I never made much of a showing. Once, at the age of fourteen, I did fairly well in a mile race for schoolboys. But whatever success I have had at marathoning could not have been foretold from boyhood victories.

I can see some evidences, however, of a background for my becoming a distance runner. When I first started school at the age of seven at Madisonville, Ohio, [had over a mile to go. Even then I found it much more pleasant to dogtrot than to walk. Only I was somewhat ashamed or selfconscious when somebody noticed my method of getting places and said, “Say, sonny, don’t you ever walk!”

A little later I had reason to do a lot of walking. My father died and it was necessary for me to help my mother with five smaller brothers and sisters. So Isold things like pins, needles, thread, and soap around the neighboring towns and country. Usually I walked ten or twenty miles when on one of these trips. Ofcourse I frequently gota lift when a horse and buggy came along the country road.

In May, 1936, while out near Cincinnati for the national 50,000 meter walk, Icalled on several of my relatives who remembered my days of walking around the neighboring towns nearly forty years ago. I might add that the DeMars have always been a rather rugged family. There are thirteen brothers and sisters of my father still living. While none of my numerous uncles and cousins has ever taken up distance running, a team of DeMars once played the Cincinnati Reds an exhibition game and were defeated by the close score of 2 to 1.

When I was ten years old, my mother brought us East to live in Warwick, Massachusetts. I continued my practice of walking around the neighborhood selling things. I also did considerable hiking through the woods and around Mount Grace. From the top of the mountain I could see parts of Keene, New Hampshire, but I little supposed that I would spend several years there, a generation later, as a teacher. During our winter at Warwick I skated so much on crusted snow that my ankle became infected and I nearly lost my foot.

Although my mother had free house-rent in Warwick (since one of her relatives owned the place), we could hardly make a living. So we broke up housekeeping and separated. I was placed in a home called the Farm School, now the Farm and Trades School, on Thompson’s Island in Boston Harbor. My wandering, carefree spirit was cramped by the bounds and rules. I became known as a good student, but very poor at anything else. The only running I did, except for the mile race, which I’ve already mentioned, was once when several of us tried to run away. Our “running” was done by swimming and by pushing a boat, as the oars were locked up. We aimed to land at Savin Hill, something over a mile away. However, the water was very cold (all my career I’ve had more success with heat than with cold) and with the aid of the Life Saving Station we were captured and put in the deepest disgrace for several months. I especially recall that in holding us up to ridicule and shame, the Superintendent mentioned my swimming witha peculiar kick, which he called a “twin screw propeller on a Chinese junk.” Later in life I was to have my foot

and leg motion again ridiculed, this time by athletic coaches. But this swim was the only time it failed to get me there eventually.

The failure of the effort to escape caused me to crawl into my shell tighter than ever and take to story books and study. Finally, the Superintendent decreed that I should walk a mile or so to the south end of the island every noon to inspect apiece of apparatus. He was very sure that I needed the exercise. When graduation came and he presented me with my grammar school diploma, the Superintendent rather doubtfully expressed the hope that I would have the health and strength to accomplish things in life.

Finally, at the age of sixteen, they let me leave the island and go to work for a fruit farmer at South Hero, Vermont. This was hard work and demanded a lot of endurance. I am sure that it was much more fatiguing to pitch hay or cut corn all day than to run a marathon for a quarter of a day. While there I grew stronger, got some education at Maple Lawn Academy, and saved some money out of my ten to twenty dollars a month.

Like most boys, I had always admired athletes and dreamed of becoming one sometime. At times I fancied myself as a great football player, possibly one who could be called back to drop-kick in emergencies. How that ball would gracefully sail through the goal posts! Then there were times when I thought I might become a good boxer and win the World’s Championship. But the two or three times that I put on the gloves were disastrous. Possibly baseball, then. If I could only get a hard hit how that ball would fly. But whenever I swung I missed.

After going on to the farm I had less time to dream. I worked and studied long hours and lived rather by myself. Then I entered the University of Vermont and was thrown into the midst of all the glamor of college athletics. During those first months on the campus if one of the athletic heroes (we had such names as Ray Collins, Larry Gardner of baseball fame, Merrill on the track and Pierce in Football) even spoke to me I was thrilled.

I had little expectation of doing anything in athletics so I kept plodding along, doing well in my studies and paying my way by chores at the experiment farm, working in print shops, and beating rugs. In dog trotting from one job to another and beating rugs I got plenty of exercise. In fact used this as an excuse to be let off from gym classes, which I always hated. The alibi worked and I passed physical education without attending classes.

With all my admiration for athletic success and the pleasure I got from glancing at scores in the papers, I seldom went to games. I guess I have never been bitten by the bug of “Spectatoritis.” In that respect I am something like Frank Zuna who wouldn’t watch the Olympic Games while a member of the team in 1924. But I always have been bitten by the desire to excel in some form of athletics, and to enjoy the pleasures of actual competition.

CHAPTER TWO: | TAKE UP RUNNING

The first time my day-dreams ever turned to distance-running was during my sophomore year at the University of Vermont. It was during the winter of 1908— 09 when I had a job delivering small samples of milk each morning from the experiment station to the State Hygiene Laboratory down town. It was less than a mile each way and I always ran, partly to save time and partly to keep warm.

One morning the thought came to me that I could run a marathon, and perhaps go abroad to represent my country. Because newspapers, except the Transcript, had been unavailable at Thompson’s Island and I hadn’t had time toread them since, the whole marathon idea was hazy to me, but I was quite sure there was such a thing and I thought I could do it.

It was not until my third year at college that I really began to run as an athlete. This is the way it started. From a sense of loyalty I usually went to the college smokers even if I never learned how to smoke then, or since. And I always took to heart the remarks of athletes who spoke to encourage more participation in athletics. Professor Stetson, of the German department, also related his theory that there was some sport in which every man could become a champion. There were lots of kinds of men and lots of sports. If each one would look around he could find something in which to become a champion.

I decided to try cross-country. I’d never tried that and candidates were to report the next day. I was there. Personally, I was a little embarrassed to run around in what looked like B.V.D.’s, but with a whole group dressed the same way it was not so bad. That was before the days of sun baths, Vitamin D and shirtless P.W.A. workers.

At that first trial the cross-country captain Stevens kept yelling at me, “Run on your toes, on your toes!”

I was so used to walking that the heel would hit first and I couldn’t get the idea of running by hitting the toes first and then coming back on the heels. I tried to dance along on my toes without the heels touching! Sometime within a year Ilearned how to run on my toes. Still I have never run that way more than onethird of the time. It is a convenient way to run if one has blisters on his heels and it seems to me a trifle faster, but it is more fatiguing. The Finns, I’m told and have partially verified by observation, all run flat-footed except Ritola, who learned to run in the United States. My whole attitude is that whether one shall run on his heels or his toes is hardly worth discussing. The main thing in distance running is endurance and the ability to get there as quickly as possible.

After a week or two of practice I went into the interclass cross-country race of four miles and came in fourth. The following week in a meet with Union College I came in fourth, beating the captain Stevens who had told me how to run.

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The exhilaration of having made good in a college sport thrilled me. I had almost won my “V,” since those were awarded to the first three. The exhilaration of which I speak showed that night at the Alpha Zeta fraternity meeting, for as one brother remarked about me, “He has talked a blue streak all ni ght.” A question so often asked at athletic gatherings, “How do you feel after one of those races?” has always been answered by reference to that night, “Very much waked up and exhilarated.”

Soon after this, in the middle of the term, I left college and went to live with my mother and one brother and sister in Melrose, Mass. I was now twenty-one and legally able to help support my mother. I continued to live in Melrose at home for twenty years and work as a printer in neighboring cities and Boston.

From the first I decided that whatever else I might do I would be a marathon runner, I ran at the leisurely speed of seven or eight miles per hour, to and from work, usually carrying a dry undershirt. I also bought a small Spaulding book about distance running for ten cents, and studied it carefully. I felt that I could absorb the instruction I needed better from reading than from a coach, since I could cogitate each problem and reach a decision without prejudice. Also, I could make sure I understood the theory before trying to put it into practice. My experience with coaches and would-be coaches in distance running is that they try to tell me something when I’m very tense and excited from running and I misunderstand them and get rattled. While reading and studying this little book I greatly admired Shrub, Longboat, Mahoney, Forshaw and Hatch, but felt a serene confidence that I could eventually do as well as any of them on a full marathon. And I had never run over eight or ten miles in my life!

When Christmas came in 1909, I had a holiday from work and decided to try the full distance to see whether I could do it. Iran up through Reading, to a part of Andover where a road sign said “Boston 20 miles,” and back to Melrose, which is seven miles from Boston. I did the 26 miles in about three hours without much exertion and so felt very confident. All winter, regardless of weather, I kept up my running, either to or from work, or both. This made from seven to fourteen miles per day. Frequently the men in the shops showed an interest in my way of travel. Now and then one would advise me of the danger to heart and health. Once a man in the street offered me a dime for carfare; and again while passing through West Everett someone yelled insistently, “Hey! Hey! you running?” I stopped. Then he said, “A year from now you’ll be dead, running like that!” Twenty-seven years have passed by and the dire prophecy is unfulfilled.

On February 22, 1910, there was a 10-mile handicap race held by the Old Armory Athletic Association from Boston to Chestnut Hill and back. I entered and received a start of 5:15 over arunner named Robinson of Brookline Gym, who was at scratch. The race was held in a rain and sleet storm. I wore an extra

blue shirt over my running jersey and many old timers still speak of remembering my first open race. I won with a fair margin over Festus Madden of South Boston and I believe I also had about the second best time. Of course I was much thrilled and excited to see my name and picture in the Boston papers. In later years I became annoyed with so much publicity, however, and was inclined to agree with the man who said, “The trick nowadays is to keep your name and picture out of the papers; it is so common to get in!”

Immediately after this race McGrath cut my handicap to 2:15 and from 1910 to 1935 it stayed at 2 or 2:15. The scratch men changed several times, but my relative ability at ten miles was constant for twenty-five years.

For winning this Armory race my prize was a silver tea set. My mother and sister were delighted with it and while they had never exactly opposed my running this made them more favorable to it. My sister said she had once thought the men who finished the marathon came in all covered with blood, but she revised her opinion when she saw me intact!

After this victory I aimed for the big marathon two months later. I ran several 10-mile races with mediocre results, owing to my low handicap. I recall, for instance, getting ninth in the Cathedral race, which is still held just prior to the marathon. Since there were eight place prizes in those days I was already getting minor disappointments along with the glamour of success.

On April 19, 1910, there was a large field of over two hundred entered for the Boston Athletic Association, or B.A.A. marathon, as it was called. This list decreased to under seventy-five in succeeding years, but finally rose to a higher number in 1928 and afterwards. I had trained by running leisurely with my clothes on, my only speed work being 10-mile races. Several times I had been out fifteen or twenty miles instead of the usual seven to or from work. As usual I was quite confident of doing well, but uncertain as to how well. The day was fairly hot, so anyone was liable to misjudge the pace. After we got started I kept a vision of the distance before me and was continually gauging my strength accordingly. This is a sort of subconscious process that takes concentration but always works, barring accidents like the loss of confidence, a gambling spirit, or mild sunstroke. At that time the course was the short one from Ashland, about twenty-four miles. Many of the runners were more developed at ten miles than I, and some were not gauging the pace as carefully, so at Wellesley I was seven minutes back of the leaders. As we passed Woodlawn and began to climb the Newton hills I closed in some and passed a couple of chaps who were badly wilted. Finally, I got up into third place and after a hard battle with James J. Corkey of Toronto, clinched second. One paper said I ran “as if my head were held by a check.” I never was a graceful runner, but then, Inever have thought an athletic event should be a beauty show! Coming down Commonwealth Avenue just before the turn into Exeter Street I got a glimpse

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of Freddy Cameron, the winner. This was the first I had seen of him since the start. Cameron won in 2:28 and I was second in 2:29. I did about the same time as Caffrey in his record run of 1901, a mark which had since been displaced by Longboat in 1907.

The North Dorchester Athletic Association, whose colors I wore, and the men in Griffith-Stillings on Congress Street, where I was working, both felt that Ihad done very well. One printer said he had watched the race and was amused at the number of handlers and sponges some of the crack racers had. “But,” he said, “you just ran right past them without ceremony.” Probably it will be clear to most people that I consider handlers, spongers, and exhorters a great handicap, anyhow. But both in the shop and at the club I got plenty of cautions that one or two of these marathons was all a man should do in a lifetime.

Early in May I ran a 10-mile handicap race conducted by the “Y” in Lynn. I finished tenth, and several volunteered the information that no runner was ever the same after he had run a marathon and of course I must always expect to finish way back in all my races after I had once run a full marathon.

During the summer of 1910 I recall running a number of races with varying success. I placed second in a 10-mile scratch race at Haverhill, Mass. on July fourth (the Jeffries-Johnson day). This race was won by Mahoney of Worcester, the New England 10-mile champion for that year. Jimmie Henigan, not yet the great 10-miler he was to become, was third or fourth. I received a gold Howard watch, and its guarantee of twenty years is already outdone.

Early in August I went out to Worcester for a 10-mile scratch race on a halfmile track. The first prize was a twenty-five dollar suit of clothes. This prize was, and is, contrary to A.A.U. rules since clothes can not be engraved! But before the days of super highways, Worcester was way out in the “sticks” and Mr. Facey, of Cambridge, the A.A.U. secretary-treasurer, was not apt to hear about any violation of rules so far away. As usual I very much needed some new clothes and tried hard to win this suit. But with runners like Tom Lilly, Jimmie Henigan and others, the best I could do that day was fifth. That just gave me a medal. When I brought it home, my mother remarked that a medal was nicer than a cup since it didn’t take up so much room! Incidentally, the suit was won by “Honey” Lucas of Fall River. “Honey” has since raised a litter of young ones equal in numbers to that of Jim Henigan or “Pep” Clark, the walker, but he is still competing and often refers to that race. He says that no one will believe that he once beat Henigan and DeMar in the same day. And he says further that the suit was too big for him, and as they wouldn’t exchange it he had to sell it at a loss!

But before this happened a couple of athletic fans named Colclough of Malden, and Jordan of Boston, had approached me about letting them help me get into shape to go down to Nova Scotia to run Freddy Cameron, the B.A.A.

winner. They had said a great deal about my possibilities and what they could do to help. They talked about eating plenty of meat, getting a long stride, taking breathing exercises and having the “guts” to fight to the finish. Doubtful, but willing to experiment, I accepted their care and guidance for a month or so. They had some of the professional coach’s arrogance at times, which I much resented but put up with for experimental reasons. For instance, I remember one bawling out: “Get up off the ground there, you’ll catch cold.” That stuff may be all right for thick-skinned football players but will antagonize anyone with any sensitivity. But these fellows aimed to be thorough and do their best for me and so took me to be examined by an old doctor in Roxbury. He told me that Thada slight heart murmur and should not run more than a year or two. [asked him how I’d first notice anything wrong with my heart, and he said that ina few years I’d feel weak, going up and down stairs. I’ve been looking for these symptoms for over a quarter of a century! In less than two years I heard that the old doctor had died of heart failure himself, so I’ve often wondered if he wasn’t listening to his own heart by mistake.

Colclough and Jordan arranged for the trip to Amherst, Nova Scotia, and of course accompanied me. They may have had plenty of expense money for their own passage, but they protected my amateur attitude very well by letting me buy my own souvenirs and lose ten days’ pay.

Anyhow we all had a good trip. They gave me pep talks, and gossiped with Tom Trenholm, Cameron’s coach. As I would now expect I finished in the rut in both the ten and fifteen mile races against such finished runners as Cameron, Hackett, and Robinson. That gave me a pretext to tell the would-be coaches that the athletic experiment was over and if they wanted to go in for running they should be contestants, not coaches.

My next full marathon was the Brockton Fair race in the fall of 1910. Billy Hackett, the 1909 winner, was the favorite. During the summer I had acquired some speed, which I used in the excitement of the early stages of this marathon to my later grief. I took the lead from Harrop of Fall River at Mattapan and increased this to nearly a mile at Randolph. But in the last miles both Hackett and Piggott passed me. I finished third and very tired.

Then there was the New England 10-mile championship at Waltham, Mass., on Thanksgiving day. In this race I finished second to Cooke of Brookline with the ever-threatening Jimmie Henigan third. This second in a New England Championship was the best I did towards a sectional gold medal until I got the New England marathon in 1934. Meanwhile I had won several national championships but it took a quarter of a century to win the honor in my own section!

To complete my first year of racing I ran a 20-mile indoor relay race in the Charlestown armory with Al Upham, then of Dorchester, now of San Diego, California, as my partner. In these races, the runners relieve each other at will,

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making the contest a series of dashes and very grueling. Among the other teams were Bob Fowler and Joe Silva, Hayden and Neller of New York, and Henigan and Hackett. On the first lap my partner gota slight lead which I took, but being inexperienced in indoor running I slipped on the second corner and made a general spill and heap. Once, in the middle of the race Upham let me do several laps beyond my quota. Afterwards he said, “You were doing so well I just let you keep on.” We did finally get second, beating out the New York team of Hayden and Sammy Neller, with Bob Fowler and Joe Silva winning. All this running in 1910 made a good background for success in 1911.

CHAPTER THREE: 1911

This was the year that I would have graduated from the University of Vermont if [had stayed. But instead it marks my introduction to victory in the big Boston Marathon. I don’t say this in comparison but merely for the sake of the record.

“ ; a As a preliminary, I entered the annual Armory A.A. ten mile race on Washington’s birthday, which I had won the year before. Over the frozen snow I managed to get sixth from a low mark and also won the time prize. Entering this race with a marathoner’s caution not to tire himself with too much competition, nor to unsettle his pace, I passed up the Cathedral run and entered the B.A.A. next.

I had worked hard in practice covering nearly a hundred miles per week for a couple of months with several twenty-mile jaunts, 5 besides my regular runs to and from work. One of the first of many physical difClarence DeMar running in one of his 34 Boston ficulties I have met before Marathons. races annoyed me this time.

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

My right knee became stiff and had a dull ache in it. [rubbed on a little of every kind of ointment and grease I could find. They certainly didn’t do any harm but neither did they do much good. I didn’t go to see a doctor because I had a sneaking notion that he would tell me not to run until the knee got well, which would probably be after April 19 or at least after I had lost the fine condition Thad built up from practicing all winter.

It has been my experience all through my running career that often I get painful spots in a knee or the calf of a leg or a foot, but nothing of that kind prevents my running except a sore hip. My sore knee may have been caused by a slightly crooked spine, which in turn caused an awkward gait and undue exertion on one knee. I never found out whether this theory was scientifically justified, but it seems a logical one.

Once a sore calf was caused by the over zealous massage of a rubber after arace. This slight pain lasted for years. Now I always try to be on my guard against “rubbers” after a race. There are always some amateur and professional rubbers present after every marathon. Once at Port Chester, arubber approached me, and more to oblige him than anything else, I let him put alcohol on my legs and slap it around. He turned out to be a professional to the extent of a dollar fee, so since then I have hardened my heart against such generous offers.

Just a few nights before the B.A.A. in 1911, in my sleep I dreamt distinctly that I had won the big race. Of course I know such things are just a coincidence, but I was glad of the encouragement. One or two runners thought I might win and just one newspaper, the old Boston Journal, had an item in Bob Dunbar’s column, saying, “Watch DeMar, he might win in fast time.”

Before the race, as usual, the staff of doctors examined all the contestants and advised one or two not to start. They listened quite a while at my chest and gave the verdict that this should be my last race and I should drop out of it if I got tired. They said that I had heart murmurs. I do not know whether it is possible to run a marathon in competition and not get tired, but at any rate I’ve never done it. At the finish one doctor expressed much surprise at how well I had run. He didn’t ask whether I had become fatigued or not.

I certainly had been tired but not exhausted. I just ran with a determination that made me confident of doing the job. At nineteen miles I took the lead from Festus Madden and won by a half mile in 2:21:39, taking about three minutes off Tom Longboat’s record. My sore knee had stayed just the same throughout the race and was no worse after it.

For this victory I received a large bronze “chariot of victory” with a special gold medal for breaking the record. And of course there was plenty of publicity and ballyhoo, which was very stimulating and amusing for a while. I received anumber of postcards and letters from presumably pretty girls, but this was not repeated after my wins in the twenties, although I was still unmarried. Perhaps

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my face acquired too many wrinkles with the years. A man’s face looks worse than usual after he finishes a marathon, anyhow. Bill Kennedy used to object to having his picture taken when he finished, saying that his wife always remarked on how old he looked!

I accepted an invitation to a ball held by the North Dorchester A.A. under whose colors I had won. While there, an athletic official looked at my thin features with some admiration for what I had done, but more pity that I didn’t have more flesh. He remarked: “You don’t drink ale, do you? That is too bad, for a glass a day would build you up in no time.” Later, when I heard he was very sick I wondered if it could be that he had forgotten his daily ale.

The employees of the Rand Avery Supply Company, then on Franklin Street, where I was working, gave me a stick pin with a chip diamond, but one of the executives down in the office told me that what I needed was a Turkish bath to freshen my overworked muscles. He further said that if I didn’t have the price of this luxury he’d make that all right. Generous enough, but I was getting $18.00 per week with considerable overtime! During the day the Boston Americancalled up the shop and wanted to know if I were working. The foreman good naturedly said, “I told them you were here, but I wasn’t sure whether you were doing much work.” But I was working and one point of my philosophy of life has always been never to let running interfere with my daily work. On the day after a marathon I always feel as if I had been out late the night before, yet I’m sure I’ve always done a fair day’s work.

During that summer] got up to Vermont and found the natives of South Hero supposed I had received a lot of money for my victory. With Yankee instinct they were disappointed that the only gain had been a statue and a medal.

For a great many years I was more conscientious about observing the letter as well as the spirit of the amateur code than now. In 1911 I got a number of invitations to race with good expenses. Once I was asked to run in Worcester; they were willing to pay taxi fare out and back, even if I walked. I conscientiously declined. Fifteen years later I would have taken the money and given the Boy Scouts a good time, and twenty-five years later I’d have taken it and fed my family, rationalizing that I had spent lots more than this windfall from my own pocket during the times I attended the Olympic Games. This might be described as the evolution of a conscientious amateur. At twenty-three he refuses money; at thirty-eight he accepts and uses for boys’ organizations; at forty-eight he accepts and uses for his family with the mental excuse that the game owes it to him; at seventy I may accept and use the money to keep myself out of the poor house, but we shall see.

Talso had an invitation, after that first race, to run in St. Louis with legitimate expenses of $50.00 and hotel bills, but I refused because of my work. Then someone wanted a race between several local runners and me, ona track. They

were willing to give me almost any piece of jewelry I wanted for a prize. I kept refusing partly because everyone had advised me that I needed a rest and partly because, with my youthful idealism, I felt there was something wrong about the amateur side of that particular contest. Now I know that undoubtedly the promoters hoped to make something, but that the odds were against them, because people will pay so little to see a foot race. Anyhow, as a last resort, after several refusals to run on my part, one smooth-talking runner, long-since retired, told me that if I was afraid of getting beaten after my splendid victory I need have no fear for he would “fix” that all right. I told him there was no need to “fix” anything since I would prefer to win my share on my own merits. Only twice in twenty-seven years have I heard any such suggestion. So, on the whole, amateur running is a very fair thing.

On May 30, Iran ina 15-mile race at one of the big league parks. As I recall it there were a number of contestants and only a few paid spectators. Al Horne of Everett (often called Belly-ache Horne) led for over half way, then, true to his name, he got a pain and I gained and held the lead to win in about 1:27.

For nearly two months after the big marathon that year I had a hacking cough. I don’t know whether this was caused by reducing too much for the race or whether it was just a natural threat of T.B. at a susceptible age. While it didn’t interfere with my work and didn’t seem to slow up my running, it had me worried and was especially bad just after a race. Finally, some one said, “You can get rid of that cough easy enough; take Scott’s Emulsion. I did so and that time it stopped the cough in about a week. However, I do not especially recommen4d this to everyone with a cough, for my experience with many cures for minor ailments is that they sometimes work the first time for some people and never again for those people and only rarely for anyone else. There are great individual differences and great differences in the same individual from month to month and year to year. These differences apply especially to athletes and their problems for getting into condition and staying there and make training a matter which can not be standardized but requires judgment and ingenuity with a frequent shift of plans and schedules.

Early in June, Iran a 10-mile handicap race for the Dorchester Day celebration. I got third and time. Then on June 17 I ran another 10-mile handicap at Danvers. Here I won first and time. That was the first occasion I ever recall getting any “expenses” to run. The manager handed me two dollars and said, “Give Dick Piggott one.” The dollar covered everything, but when I think of the way expenses came in the twenties, I realize that amateurism is only relative. For this race I received two beautiful loving cups. Someone visiting my mother in a day or two and seeing the cups, remarked that it was most unusual for any one to win anything else after they had won the marathon! That notion that a man is through, once he wins the B.A.A., persists with nothing to back

Clarence DeMar MARATHON ® 101

it except a few isolated cases like the subsequent failure of Renaud, after his victory in 1909; and the failure of Miles to do anything so phenomenal as his victory in 1926, although he won the big race again in 1929.

A week after the Danvers race I won a 10-mile scratch run on the track at Canobie Lake. Tom Lilly and I sort of teamed up to pace each other from the start and go fast to prevent Cliff Horne of Haverhill, then a coming runner, from making a showing by leading for a few miles, which he liked to do when his friends were present. We succeeded, which shows that I had developed to where I could do better than a 5:30 mile and kept it up for nearly five miles. The time for the whole race was under 57 minutes. The race was so late that I could only get a trolley as far as Reading and had to walk the rest of the way, getting in at 2:00 a.m.

I didn’t have any more races for nearly two weeks until July 4 when Iran a 10-mile scratch race in Somerville. The day was probably the hottest of any Tever ran on. It took me quite a bit over the hour to do the distance, but I had no need to hurry for the second man, Jordan of Cambridge, a cousin of another marathoner, was about a mile back, and all the other contestants quit. As they had eight prizes and only two finishers I managed to collect two.

Some time after this I was invited to run an exhibition one-mile at an affair on the Readville track. This is a mile horse-track so I had just one lap for the exhibition. Inever could doa mile very fast and this being an exhibition, I didn’t practise especially or key myself up much. So it took me 5:45 to make the round. The announcer kindly called it 4:45. I received a cut-glass set for the appearance, but no “expenses” of any kind.

Then I had quite a rest until about the middle of August when I was invited up to Manchester, New Hampshire, for a 10-mile scratch race held by the Foresters. This run was from Manchester to Goff’s Falls. I got there just a few minutes before starting time and at once sensed a tenseness among the other runners. My record for the year had been seven victories and no defeats. Naturally the others were beginning to feel that it was somebody else’s turn to win, so they had patched up a little plan. As soon as the race started a couple set a pace faster than 5:30 per mile, which was too fast for any of us to keep up more than three miles in a 10-mile race. But they kept it up right along and I, full of pride at my year’s successes, stayed with them. At five miles I felt very tired but did not dare drop the leaders lest I lose my stride and fall way back. At seven miles the ones who had planned on killing me off, for that was the plot, dropped back to give Dick Piggott or Tom Lilly a chance to come up from the rear and beat me the last three miles. Just at this point the officials hollered, “Turn in here,” and behold that was the finish! I won in 39 minutes; it was seven miles instead of the ten as advertised. That is a thing we have to be on our guard against in a 10-mile race over a strange course; it may be anywhere between six

and fourteen miles. As to the runners’ little plot to tire me out, if they had but known that it was only seven miles, they probably could have beaten me running naturally without a plot, for that was a little too short a distance for me and the only victory for the year at less than 10-miles. The immense trophy awarded for this short race is now in my mother’s house in Melrose. The prize is as large as any I ever got for a marathon, and often visitors comment on the discrepancy in size between that trophy and several small cups for 20-mile races, for instance.

During the summer of this year I received a letter from Dr. Kellogg of Battle Creek, Michigan. (This is not the Kellogg of cornflake fame.) The doctor had some ideas on diet, which he said should improve my endurance. He invited me to spend a few weeks at his sanitarium and find out for myself. Since I couldn’t afford to lose my wages for the sake of the doctor’s experiment I declined, but expressed my interest in the matter and my willingness to eat as he would suggest for a year or so. So Dr. Kellogg wrote me a lot about calories, proteins, carbohydrates and fats and the advantages of abstaining from meat. With the cooperation of my mother I conscientiously followed the program of eating no meat (except Thanksgiving) and tried to count the proper number of calories for a year. When I went away from home or anyone visited us, it was embarrassing to have to explain about my eating habits. Many people thought me “persnickety,” but I felt that my running would be more justified if I contributed something to the noble experiment in science! After eating this way for a couple of months I saw no change for better or worse. Then came the Brockton marathon. Dr. Kellogg especially advised me what to eat the morning of the race. It was one dozen oranges, / lb. pine nuts, and one pound of high-grade caramels, which he sent. I found that it took nearly the whole morning to eat all this stuff. The oranges, especially, took a long time for no one was as used to eating oranges then as now. After this marathon of eating I didn’t feel especially full of pep, but found I had plenty of endurance in the race. I won, taking the lead at Dutchland Farms and having a comfortable margin at the finish.

After this Dr. Kellogg was pleased and had a big piece in one of his papers about my victory with a vegetable diet. At heart I couldn’t get away from the thought that I probably would have won anyhow, and that if the experiment had any scientific value it was simply to show that a person could have plenty of endurance without meat for some months. However, the idea of becoming better than the other runners by having a better diet was fascinating, so I intended to continue.

I didn’t plan to do any more competing as Mr. Babb of Melrose, prominent as an A.A.U. member, and others had assured me my prospects for next year’s Olympic team were better without more racing. So I passed up the New England 10-mile championship held in Lynn that year. This gave me a year withClarence DeMar MARATHON ® 103

out defeats and ten victories, including two marathons. I felt I had accomplished the second highest ambition of a marathoner—to win the B.A.A. (The highest honoris, of course, to win the Olympic race.) And I was satisfied to have held the honor without defeat for the entire year.

I heard someone say: “Won the big race, did he? Well he must be the happiest boy in the world.” I’m quite sure I was not, however, because, with a natural ambition to better myself, I felt that the B.B.A. was only a step, and I still longed to win an Olympic Marathon. What’s more the victory did not seem to bring respect, only a kind of curiosity as to why I had done it, and the desire to give me some advice. Advice, always advice! I still had just as many problems of finance and personal adjustment as anyone, so for all these reasons, I wasn’t as contented as I might have been. The year 1911 remained a year of improvement and achievement in running stunts, but I still had no feather in my cap for personal poise or happiness.

Reprinted with permission of The New England Press. The photos on pages 90 and 98 were obtained for this reprinting.

Clarence DeMar’s autobiography Marathon will continue in the next issue of M&B with

Chapter 4: How Does It Feel to Run a Marathon?

Chapter 5: The 1912 Olympics

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