Proof that your high school years influence your later life!

Three years on the Inglemoor cross country team opened my eyes to the joys of running.  Back then, running more than a few miles seemed crazy to most people--but that experience was life changing for me.  The idea of running free, of moving your body effortlessly through space and time has never lost its allure for me.  My wife and three children and their spouses have all taken up the sport.  This all started when I made the decision to turn out for the team more than fifty years ago. I still remember the thrill of running through leaves on a fall afternoon, of putting on my spikes for the meet, and of catching a runner near the tape and blowing past him.  Thanks Mr. Hunt for giving me a life time sport and a bunch of very fond memories that I keep close to my heart..

About the book:

On April 23, 1929, the second annual Transcontinental Foot Race across America, known as the Bunion Derby, was in its twenty-fifth day. Eddie “the Sheik” Gardner, an African American runner from Seattle, was leading the race across the Free Bridge over the Mississippi River. Along with the signature outfit that earned him his nickname—a white towel tied around his head, white shorts, and a white shirt—Gardner wore an American flag, a reminder to all who saw him run through the Jim Crow South that he was an American and the leader of the greatest footrace in the world.

Kastner traces Gardner’s remarkable journey from his birth in 1897 in Birmingham, Alabama, to his success in Seattle, Washington, as one of the top long-distance runners in the region, and finally to his participation in two transcontinental footraces where he risked his life, facing a barrage of harassment for having the audacity to compete with white runners. Kastner shows how Gardner’s participation became a way to protest the endemic racism he faced, heralding the future of nonviolent efforts that would be instrumental to the civil rights movement. Shining a bright light on his extraordinary athletic accomplishments and his heroism on the dusty roads of America in the 1920s, Kastner gives Gardner and other black bunioneers the attention they so richly deserve.

FROM THE BOOK

“On April 23, 1929, the bunion derby returned to the Jim Crow South.  On that day, Eddie “the Sheik” Gardner, an African American runner from Seattle, Washington, was leading the bunion derby across the Free Bridge over the Mississippi River that separated Illinois from Missouri.  He was flying, blazing over the short, by derby standards, twenty-two-mile course at a sub-three-hour marathon pace. Eddie was wearing the distinctive outfit that earned him his nickname, a white towel tied around his head and a white sleeveless shirt and white shorts, but he had added something new to his outfit. Below his racing number, “165,” he had sewn an American flag, a reminder to all who saw him run that he was an American and, that day, the leader of the greatest footrace in the world. He was setting himself up for another collision with southern segregation.”

“On the derby’s last day on Route 66, black Chicagoans lined the road starting fourteen miles west of the city to cheer Eddie on as he raced by. Most of them had left the South either as children or as adults in search of a better life.  They knew what Eddie had endured from firsthand experience.  They had come to cheer on a man who had risked everything to compete at the highest level of the new sport of trans-America racing and in turn, through his courage, became a rallying point for their brothers and sisters still trapped in the South.”

“Eddie Gardner was living the words of W. E. B. Du Bois to demand his rights as an American citizen to compete whenever and wherever he pleased, and he risked his life to do so.  That act of risking life and limb at the hands of irate white spectators made him a foot soldier in the battle for racial equality in America. He was a harbinger of the thousands of Freedom Marchers who would take the same risk when they challenged injustice in the South in the 1950s and 1960s.”  

Chuck Kastner has written three highly praised books about the 1928 and 1929 “bunion derbies”, the nickname for the two epic footraces that crisscrossed America in the last years of the Jazz Age. 

Kastner has opened these forgotten races to legions of running enthusiasts through books, magazines, podcasts, and public speaking engagements.  And he has given these forgotten ironmen the credit and laurels they so richly deserve for persevering in the face of impossible odds.

The author has spent the last twenty years learning and writing about these great trans-America footraces.  His interest in long distance running began when he joined the Inglemoor High School cross country team in 1970, where he earned three varsity letters in the sport.  

His love for running became a life time passion: Kastner has run over 100 five-kilometer, ten-kilometer and half marathon races as well as running twenty-five marathons and one ultra during a career that has spanned almost fifty years.  He is also a trained historian and veteran researcher, and holds a BA in History from Whitman College and a MA in History from Washington State University. He also has a MBA from Pacific Lutheran University, and a MS in Environmental Biology from Hood College.

The author is married and the father of three children, and the grandfather of four granddaughters and one grandson. His wife, Mary, and all of their children have run marathons. Two of their three children have run ultra-marathons.  His son Brian ran a 140 mile footrace on Route 66 last November.  He ran almost continuously for 30 plus hours and finished in fourth place.