Champagne, cocaine and some very long walks: when pedestrianism ruled the sporting world

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According to Guardian Sport, before ultrarunning, there was ultrawalking known as pedestrianism. The Victorian-era fad started with a wager on the 1860 US presidential election made by Edward Payson Weston, who vowed to walk from Boston to Washington. After serving as a Union spy during the Civil War, Weston's celebrity status helped turn pedestrianism into a massive spectator sport across venues like Madison Square Garden in New York and the Oval in London. Weston's career featured extraordinary athletic feats, extreme endurance tests, and occasional controversies involving stamina methods such as chewing coca leaves. Pedestrianism declined in the 1890s as sports like bicycling and baseball took over, and Weston ultimately passed away in 1929 at the age of 90 after being struck by a taxi in Manhattan.