George Littlewood

George Littlewood, known as the Sheffield Flyer, was a professional pedestrian who competed in ultradistance walking and multiday six-day races in the late nineteenth century. He was born on 20 March 1859 in Rawmarsh, Yorkshire, England, and entered his first six-day event in November 1879, finishing fourth of 28 contestants. Between 6 and 11 March 1882 he walked 531 miles on a thirteen-lap-to-the-mile track at the Norfolk Drill Hall in Sheffield, a six-day walking record that the article describes as still standing. At Madison Square Garden in New York in late 1888 he set a British six-day race record of 623 miles 1,320 yards that was not beaten for 96 years. He competed in the early Astley Challenge Belt races and eventually won the belt outright, and a 1966 physiologist called his 1888 feat probably about the maximum sustained output of which the human frame is capable.