> We may think of baseball as America's national pastime, but in the 1870s and 1880s there was another sports craze sweeping the nation: competitive walking. "Watching people walk was America's favorite spectator sport," Matthew Algeo says in his new book, Pedestrianism.
> During the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, pedestrianism, like running or horse racing (equestrianism) was a popular spectator sport in the British Isles. Pedestrianism became a fixture at fairs – much like horse racing – developing from wagers on footraces, rambling, and 17th century footman wagering.[1] Sources from the late 17th and early 18th century in England write of aristocrats pitting their carriage footmen, constrained to walk by the speed of their masters' carriages, against one another.[2] By the end of the 18th century, and especially with the growth of the popular press, feats of foot travel over great distances (similar to a modern Ultramarathon) gained attention, and were labeled "pedestrianism".
> Champagne was considered a stimulant. And a lot of trainers — these guys had trainers — advised their pedestrians to drink a lot of champagne during the race. They thought that this would give them some kind of advantage. The problem was a lot of these guys would drink it by the bottle. That definitely was not a stimulant to say the least.
Well, not technically according to modern medicine. But it does remove inhibitions, which is sort of saying the same thing as letting you do more. The most common example being angry drunks who get upset over things they never would when they were sober, or noisy drunks who party harder. I'm not sure I'd be willing to walk 6 days straight without some alcohol to remove my inhibitions.
Early Tour de France riders would take a bottle of brandy with them and swig it. It was supposed to dull the pain of steep climbs. At some point that was abandoned.
yeah, only if you develop COPD; and, as the article points out, "These changes are not universal in smoking, however. Even with lifetime smoking, there is only a 50% chance of developing COPD."
Alcohol in various forms was thought to be beneficial. Wine was served to workmen and drunk by cyclists in earlier times. Not ... quite as effective as thought.
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/03/297327865/in-the-1870s-and-80s...
> We may think of baseball as America's national pastime, but in the 1870s and 1880s there was another sports craze sweeping the nation: competitive walking. "Watching people walk was America's favorite spectator sport," Matthew Algeo says in his new book, Pedestrianism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrianism
> During the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, pedestrianism, like running or horse racing (equestrianism) was a popular spectator sport in the British Isles. Pedestrianism became a fixture at fairs – much like horse racing – developing from wagers on footraces, rambling, and 17th century footman wagering.[1] Sources from the late 17th and early 18th century in England write of aristocrats pitting their carriage footmen, constrained to walk by the speed of their masters' carriages, against one another.[2] By the end of the 18th century, and especially with the growth of the popular press, feats of foot travel over great distances (similar to a modern Ultramarathon) gained attention, and were labeled "pedestrianism".