On October 12, 1925, American long-distance runner Albert Richard “Whitey” Michelsen made athletic history by winning the inaugural Port Chester Marathon, which ran from Manhattan to Port Chester in Westchester County, New York. His time of 2:29:01.8 made him the first person in recorded history to complete the full marathon distance in under two and a half hours, challenging contemporary assumptions about the limits of human endurance.
The performance established a world-best mark that stood for nearly a decade, until Japan’s Fusashige Suzuki ran 2:27:49 in Tokyo on March 31, 1935. Michelsen later represented the United States in the Olympic marathon at the 1928 Amsterdam Games and the 1932 Los Angeles Games. His landmark run remains a defining early milestone in the progression of competitive marathon running.
