The 1928 race was the brain-child of an American sports promoter, CC Pyle, whose ambition was to create a running equivalent of the Tour de France. Nothing like it had been staged before. There were 199 competitors from 14 different countries, including the winner of the 1924 Olympic marathon : the distance was 3,422 miles, and the runners averaged just over 40 miles a day for 85 days. There were no rest days, and only 22 finished. The youngest competitor was a black sixteen year old from Louisiana : the oldest a sixty-three year old Englishman called Charles Hart, who was described in the race programme as "having defeated two horses in a six-day contest". At a time of intense racial tension in the States, the race was remarkable in being open to whites, blacks and Native Americans. It was won by a Cherokee Indian from Oklahoma.

In the interview Gavuzzi describes the 'small town' of lorries, tents and cooks that followed them ... the heat of the desert ... getting lost in the high Rockies ... being rowed across the Colorado River by Indians ... the daily lunch-break provided by Maxwell House, who used the event as advertising. Gavuzzi was pulled out of the race near Chicago by the official doctor - he'd ignored his UK dentist's advice to have all his teeth out, and was suffering from appalling abscesses.

Gavuzzi went back to his job, and then found out that Pyle was organising the reverse race, from New York to LA, in 1929. He got sponsorship to train by running from Land's End to John O'Groats - he broke the record, despite not being allowed to run on Sundays in Scotland. The 1929 race was even tougher - over 3,600 miles, with six fewer days allowed. The route was more southern, so hotter and more humid. Gavuzzi describes going through the Texas oilfields - "the smell was terrible ; all you could see was these pumps going up and down, and every time they went up and down it was a dollar in someone's pocket. We were poor and they were rich." Having led almost all the way until the final stage around LA, Gavuzzi eventually lost ( after running for over 525 hours) by 2 minutes and 17 seconds. The Montreal Daily Herald wrote of the race : "This was one of the epic sports sagas of the time. It saw a steadily decreasing little band struggling grimly on, over sunbaked roads, throats parched, agonised by the endless effort, feet burning, blistered, bleeding, lungs torn apart by the effort, sand in their mouths, madness in their eyes. Before them like a mirage dangled a fabulous purse ... a purse they never got." By the time the runners reached LA C.C. Pyle had gone bust. Peter Gavuzzi was given a promissory note for $10,000 that he carried in his wallet for years. "I might as well have my amateur status as be stuck with this thing", he often joked. But he'd never been, or wanted to be, an amateur.

Gavuzzi settled in Montreal after the race, where he was able to cash in on his fame. He ran professionally, and then became a sought-after coach. In the late 1930s he entered the Tour de France ... on foot ! He spent nearly the whole war as a POW before returning to Britain.

This human story needs to be placed in sporting and political context. This was the beginning of the Depression ; these were hungry young men, prepared to be exploited by a ruthless promoter for the chance of winning a few thousand dollars ; they weren't the amateur elite who took part in the Olympics of 1928 or 1932. (Peter Gavuzzi himself took part in a professional 24 hour race at Hambledon in 1931). We look at how Gavuzzi and other pros were treated by the blue-blooded British athletic authorities, and how they've subsequently been written out of athletic history.