By Davy Crockett 

In the early 1970s, several highly competitive 100-mile races had been held in England, but they were still primarily organized for attempts to break British or world records. In 1975 another classic race was held, perhaps one of the greatest and most competitive 100-mile race ever held. It left one reporter speechless, witnessing something that he would never forget, watching some of the fastest 100-mile runners ever, and experiencing the sportsmanship of ultrarunning for the first time. This story must be retold.

In America, 100-mile races were being held, open to anyone who wanted to give it a try, even the naïve. In 1975, the annual Camellia 100 held in the Sacramento, California area was held for the fifth year.

But the oldest annual American 100-miler that tends to be forgotten, was the Columbia 100 Mile Walk held in Columbia, Missouri. In 1975 It was held for the ninth year. There had been 23 sub-24-hour 100-miler finishes in its history. But this was nothing compared to Great Britain. There, 100-mile walking races had been held annually since 1946, for 30 years, with more than 450 finishes in less than 24 hours.

Elsewhere, the Durban 100 held every-other year in South Africa, had been competed six times, with at least 33 finishers (only partial results have been preserved). In Italy, 24-hour races had been held every year since 1970 with 100-mile finishers. In 1975, a 24-hour race with many 100-mile finishers was competed inside the Soviet controlled iron curtain, in Czechoslovakia.

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The Greatest 100-miler – Acolade 100

On October 25, 1975, at the Tipton Sports Union Stadium in Tipton, England, the British Road Runners Club put on the Acolade 100-mile race that has been called the “Greatest 100 Miles” by world ultrarunning history authority, Andy Milroy. Why was it so significant?

The 100-miler was an invitation-only race and 18 competitors were carefully selected out of a large group who were interested. All were very experienced ultrarunners, but only a few had actually finished a 100-miler. The most experienced 100-miler runner was Ron Bentley, the current 24-hour world-record holder of 161 miles (see episode 65). But Bentley was hampered by a recent groin injury. The race was held just three weeks after the major ultramarathon of the time, London to Brighton (52 miles). This was a concern because some of the runners also ran there, but they held to the scheduled date.

Cavin Woodward

Cavin Woodward (1947-2010) was an accountant from Whitnash, England. He started running at the age of 16 in 1963 when he joined the Leamington Cycling and Athletics Club (LC&A), starting a lifetime membership.

Cavin Woodward in 1967

He took up marathon running in 1971 because he “felt sorry” for Leamington’s veteran marathoner, Tom Buckingham (1918-1976), age 53, who seemed like he always was the only club member competing in marathon events. Buckingham had started running in 1946. Woodward said, “Tom never seemed to have any support so I decided to run with him. Other distance runners then joined the club.”  Soon several runners in the club started to compete in London to Brighton (52 miles).

At first Woodward competed in races more for enjoyment than for winning. He said, “But my wife Carol changed that. She was fed up with coming to watch me do not good, so she mapped out a training schedule for me and made sure that I kept to it. It proved a great incentive because Carol comes to watch all my races and gives me encouragement.” She would also bring along their twin boys. Woodward ran his first London to Brighton (52 miles) in 1971 and finished 17th. He said, “I was more interested in finishing than my final posit...