Sport: About Face

In the pubs around Macclesfield, in England’s Cheshire, the regulars have been gassing for years about old John Alcock. Oldsters could still recall the day in 1902 when John, then 62, walked backwards the whole twelve miles from Macclesfield to Buxton, and turned the trick in 3 hr. 14½ min. Last week a relative newcomer named Russell Wright, 46, set out to better old John’s time over the same course.

The downhill parts of the Buxton road gave Wright the most trouble. He had to lean sharply toward Macclesfield to keep from falling flat. But with a couple of forward-walking friends for company (see cut), Wright backtracked to a modern local record,* 3 hr. 14 min., half a minute better than John Alcock’s time in 1902.

Then Wright got some bad news. Scraping through the records, someone discovered that Alcock had turned in considerably faster time (2 hr. 44 min.) for the distance in 1875, when he was a mere youngster of 35. Wright announced that he would go into training to beat that performance, too.

* The U.S. record in such matters appears to belong to the late Bill (“Bojangles”) Robinson, who could, and often did, demonstrate his speed at running backwards. His best time: 8.2 sec. for 75 yds.