7: The 1930 500-mile Peter Dawson Relay

As the Great Depression began raging across the world, race events for professional ultrarunners pretty much dried up in the United States. All professional sports suffered in America during that time. For a few years, promoters in Canada filled the void, and were able to attract some of the most talented American ultrarunners to head northward, to run in their races.



One such race was the 1930 Peter Dawson Relay held in the province of Quebec. This was one of those forgotten races that deserves a place in the history of ultrarunning. Both New York and Boston bid for the race but it was awarded to Quebec. It included many of the greatest American ultrarunners of that time. Most of them have been totally forgotten and all have now passed away, but some of them lived into the 1980s and 1990s.