Memory Lane 1953: Johnny Miles Day

As a youngster my father told me about one of the greatest long distance runners in the world....Johnny Miles This was a young man who could run for Long distances and never be tired. He was a youngster who had a dream of running the Boston Marathon. His work was delivering milk to the people of Sydney Mines, Cape Breton. He wore rubber boots because of the weather and the conditions but that never slowed this man down.

Johnny Miles won every race he went into and became quite a person in the athletic scene. He decided to enter the Boston Marathon and hitch hiked to Boston for the event. He had no running shoes but bought a pair for less than a dollar before the race.

He entered the race as an unknown but before long he was known all over the world. He not only won the race but broke the record in spite of being lost during the race. He returned home a hero but the world called him to race everywhere there was a classic race and he met the challenge. As a young man I tried to become a little like him as uncle Matt used to make us race long distances for our own good.

I became quite a half miler in my day but long distance always called me to try the long races. I ran the 5,000 and 10,000 races for the Olympic trials in 1960 and loved the competition. I did make the finals that year in the 800 meters but that was a far off challenge to the Marathon.

I tried the marathon several times and always finished but my time was a little off the record. I looked up my best time and found that in 1961 there was a race where the winner had a time of 2 hours 27 minutes 37 seconds. My time was 2 hours,46 minutes and 44 secs. I came 27th. That race was for Johnny Miles. I only raced one more marathon and in that race I was just a finisher. I never ran a long race again but I loved the challenge and the name of Miles was always on my mind.

Miles was a Sydney miner and so am I and I shall always be proud to say his name and talk of his record.