I like to walk. It is a blessing, a thing of fortune, that we can. There are so many people in this world who have not been afforded the luxury of walking. When we lived in Charleston, SC, we walked everywhere. The only times we drove our car was to go to the grocery. And that wasn’t always the case either.
People have had a fascination with walking throughout history. Maybe fascination is the wrong word. It seems that with humans, there is always some strange “need” to turn everything into a competition. Walking did not escape this phenomenon.
In today’s notes on history, it pointed out that on this date, February 25, in 1838, a London pedestrian walked 20 miles backward and then again forward in 8 hours. That’s all I could find out. I don’t know who this person was or the circumstances behind this backward / forward walk. But I imagine it was some sort of a dare that was conjured up in the dark corner of a pub while two fellows threw back pints of ale and tried to see who could pee farther.
When I searched the internet for more, the only thing that surfaced was the Barclay Challenge. The details started in 1809 when Captain Robert Barclay Allardice made a bet with one of his pedestrian rivals, Sir James Webster-Wedderburn. He bet him that he could walk 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours. The wager? 1,000 guineas.
That’s 1,000 miles in 42 days. The guy did it, no problem. The toughest part was figuring out a “resting” schedule. At any rate, word of this challenge spread around, and different men took it on, making their bets.
But, never a woman, because women were considered frail back in those days. It wasn’t a ladylike thing to do. Never mind that women had been giving birth since the beginning of time, old fellas. Women were extremely strong back then, as they are now. They were just held back by misogynistic rules and laws as we still see today.
But women were standing up to these charges of frailty. Such was the case in 1864 when Emma Sharp heard about the Barclay Match. That good Mrs. Sharp, who was then in her early thirties, told her husband, John, that she thought she could do it. Big surprise here — John was not so enthusiastic. Once again, he told her that walking 1,000 miles was hardly an appropriate task for a woman to undertake.
She might have been athletic, but she seemed to have good business sense above all. Emma Sharp started making plans for the event. She convinced the landlord of the Quarry Gap Hotel to participate in the event. He enthusiastically offered up the grounds attached to his hotel as the location of the course. Then, in exchange, he would receive a percentage of the money earned from ticket sales.
And so it began on September 17, 1864. Emma Sharp took the first step of her 1,000-mile venture. She used intervals of walking and resting over the next six weeks until she completed her last mile. No woman had ever successfully completed this journey, and very few men had done it either. It was big news, and loads of people paid to watch. Big, big crowds, and lots and lots of ticket sales.
She completed the task, despite the fact that in the last week or so, people started to sabotage her. They threw hot embers in her path, and they tried to drug her. She was chloroformed once and beaten up. But she didn’t stop.
On October 29, 1864, at approximately 5:15 a.m., Emma Sharp became the first woman to complete the Barclay Challenge. More than 100,000 people turned up during the course of the challenge. At the end, about 25,000 were present to watch her cross the finish line.
Her husband hid in a pub, embarrassed. However, he did not complain one little bit when he was able to quit his job because of all the money Mrs. Sharp made in ticket sales.
Put one foot in front of the other.
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“Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.”
― Steven Wright
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“There comes . . . a longing never to travel again except on foot.”
― Wendell Berry, Remembering
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“Now shall I walk or shall I ride?
‘Ride,’ Pleasure said;
‘Walk,’ Joy replied.”
― W.H. Davies
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The journey of a thousand miles, begins by walking.
