Marathon man - runner Mensen Ernst

UNESCO Courier, June, 1987 by Bredo Berntsen

Marathon Man

LONG-DISTANCE running hasenjoyed a popular revival in recent years, and runners such as Paavo Nurmi, Emil Zatopek, Abebe Bikila and Grethe Waitz are household names. But it was 150 years ago that the greatest runner of all time was at the peak of his career. He was a Norwegian named Mensen Ernst.

His real name was Mons Monsen Oyri.He was the son of a poor tenant farmer from Leikanger on the Sognefjord where he was born in 1795. He lived there until he was about fifteen years old, when he moved to the town of Bergen. He went to sea, and won his first competitive run in Cape Province in 1813.

As a seaman and adventurer he visitedthe American, African, Asian and Australian continents, acquiring along the was survival skills that were later to help him navigate, wheedle and bluff his way through his extraordinary journeys. The only surviving contemporary portrait of the "Running King', as he was known in Norwegian, shows him cradling a sextant.

In 1818 he arrived in London. It is herethat he officially became a "pedestrian', a runner or walker who covered long distances in return for money. Here he also took his professional name, Mensen Ernst. His subsequent career was to last for twenty-five years.

His first important run was in the springof 1819, from London to Portsmouth (116 kilometres) in nine hours. His popularity was assured when he then covered the 240 kilometres from London to Liverpool in thirty-two hours.

After a time he began to long for theContinent, however, and in 1820 crossed the Channel again, travelling on foot to Annenrode manor in Muhlhausen (in what is now the German Democratic Republic), where he made a number of life-long friends. From then on he lived as a professional runner, and his fame as the greatest runner of all time spread quickly as he ran from city to city--Berlin, Prague, Rome--across the Continent. In 1826 he put on a demonstration in Copenhagen, where the high fees he earned included 100 "daler' from the Danish King Frederick VI. Ironically, his native Norway was one of the few countries through which he never ran.

After some years Mensen Ernst cameto see himself as something of an internationalist. He became a genuine traveller, curious about foreign cultures and customs; he learned to speak French, English and German well, and knew some Italian and Turkish.

In 1832, aged thirty-seven, Ernst wentto Paris in order to plan an audacious run to Moscow. Among those who helped him organize the stakes was a Swedish diplomat, Count Lowenhielm. Ernst was to receive 3,800 francs if he covered the distance in fifteen days. He left Paris on 11 June, arriving in Kaiserlantern two days later. "I felt I was sailing . . . on my two unique frigates,' he was quoted later, in a German book about him written in 1838. "Those who witnessed my running considered me eccentric, or else a fool, or possessed by the devil.'

On 18 June he crossed the Polish riverVistula and next day was in Russia. He actually reached Moscow a day earlier than expected. The commander there had prepared to greet him, but because of Ernst's early arrival and the ragged state of his clothing he was taken at first for a beggar. He had covered about 2,500 kilometres, or more than 170 kilometres daily.

How did Ernst adapt to the extremeconditions encountered on his journeys, the burning sun, cold winds, pouring rain? We know that he had a strict set of rules that he followed all his life. He stuck to a simple diet, for example: mostly bread and cheese, a few vegetables, less frequently cold meat; but he never ate warm food. He also preferred to sleep outdoors, believing that lying on hard ground kept the body supple. If he did sleep indoors it was always on a hard bench, never a soft bed. His only weakness was for wine, which he used to drink by the bottle even on his runs, but with no apparent ill effects.

By the time he returned to Paris fromhis Moscow run, Mensen Ernst was a hero. He had become a living legend who attracted rapturous audiences of thousands.

In 1833, he set out from Munich forNauplion, then the capital of the newly founded state of Greece. He suggested to King Ludwig I and Queen Therese that he carry documents for their son, Otto I of Greece, and after a delay of some months his offer was accepted. His departure on 6 June was cheered by a crowd of 20,000 outside Nymphenburg Palace.

This was a particularly dramatic journey,partly because of the rugged landscape, partly because of some unusually severe problems Ernst encountered along the way. In Montenegro he was set upon by five robbers wielding pistols and swords; as well as his money, they took his maps, compass and quadrant, but fortunately not the letters. He managed to find his way to the town of Cattaro, where he got food and drink, new maps and compass, and started out again--only to be arrested as a spy. He spent three days in jail before he was freed by the Pasha of Janina, who "looked more like a Western general than an Oriental Pasha', as Ernst later said.