The Life and Gifts of Ted Corbitt
This week’s Virtual NYRR Ted Corbitt 15K celebrates the life and legacy of Ted Corbitt (1919–2007), the first president of NYRR. Known as “the father of long distance running,” Corbitt was the first African American to compete in the Olympic marathon. He completed 223 marathons and ultramarathons—winning 30 of them—and ran more than 200,000 lifetime miles. He was also an innovative physical therapist, the inventor of accurate course measurement, and a tireless champion of inclusivity across all ages, races, genders, and abilities.
This month as we celebrate the #giftofrunning, we encourage you to recognize what running has given you—in the spirit of Ted Corbitt, who gave us so much.
Early Life
Before he even became a competitive distance runner, Ted was extraordinary. He was born in 1919 on a farm near Dunbarton, SC, and grew up doing hard physical labor—plowing fields, picking cotton. He often ran to and from school, two miles each way over dirt roads. From his family—especially his grandfather, a formerly enslaved person—Ted learned self-reliance, tenacity, grit, and to aim high.
In the late 1920s, seeking better economic opportunities, the family moved to Cincinnati as part of the Great Migration of millions of African Americans to the North from the Deep South. Ted competed in his first running event, a 60-yard dash, at an intramural meet at Bloom Junior High School when he was 13. He wore corduroy pants and was barefoot—and he won. That same year, Cincinnati’s recreation director brought 1932 Olympic 100m and 200m silver medalist Ralph Metcalfe to town to meet young athletes. Ted took notice.
At a time when many Black children quit school after junior high, Ted continued his education. He joined the track team at Woodward High School, running the 100-yard dash, 220-yard low hurdles, and 440-yard relay. By his senior year he was the school’s best 880-yard runner and finished fourth in the city championships.
With his mother’s encouragement, Ted enrolled at the University of Cincinnati and studied physical and health education. He joined the track team, but overall his college running experience was disappointing—the program was underfunded and segregationist rules and customs often barred Ted from competing. He trained largely on his own and returned to his childhood habit of running for transportation—two practices he’d continue for the rest of his life.
By the time he graduated, with honors, in 1942, Ted had run the 100 yards in 10.1 seconds and the 440 in under 50 seconds. He was called up for military service but was rejected due to a suspected case of tuberculosis. Cleared to continue with exercise, Ted began exploring longer distances as a runner, gradually increasing his longest run to 15 miles. But he couldn’t get beyond that barrier—extreme fatigue, faintness, and blisters would cause him to stop.
In 1944, Ted was reclassified as 1-A, inducted into the Army, and shipped out to Okinawa. He served nearly two years in the South Pacific, during which time he kept fit with calisthenics and a gymnastics bar—again using his ingenuity to pursue wellness under less-than-ideal circumstances.
Ted returned home in the fall of 1946, then moved to Brooklyn, the home of his fiancée Ruth Butler (they later moved to northern Manhattan, where Ted lived for most of the rest of his life). They married and Ted started a three-year masters program in physical therapy at New York University. In 1949, he began a 44-year physical therapy career at the Institute for the Crippled and Disabled in Manhattan. Busy with school and work, he ran sporadically, finishing 14th in the 1947 national 25K championship. Afterward, a runner named Harry Murphy invited Ted to join his club, the New York Pioneer Club.
The Pioneer
Eleven years earlier, in 1936, three Black men in Harlem—Joseph Yancey, Robert Douglas, and Willian Culbreath—had founded the New York Pioneer Club. At the time, non-whites were excluded from most athletic clubs, but the Pioneers were integrated from the beginning. When Ted took up Harry Murphy's offer in 1947—the same year Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball—he was proud to wear the Pioneer colors.
Encouraged by his teammates, Ted trained for his first marathon, the 1951 Boston Marathon, reading everything about running he could get his hands on and paying attention to his own body. For example, he learned to hydrate during his long runs by noticing that he felt remarkably better after catching snowflakes on his tongue. He trained in heavy combat boots after reading that Olympic champion Emil Zatopek did so.
Ted’s 2:48:42 marathon debut earned him 15th place in Boston. He qualified to compete in the 1952 Olympic marathon in Helsinki (pictured above) thanks to a strong showing at the 1952 Yonkers Marathon, which served as the national championship. Although he finished a disappointing 44th in Helsinki, Ted was hooked on the marathon. By the end of 1954 he’d run 14 marathons and earned a national title. Four years later, at the 1958 Shanahan Marathon, he ran his lifetime best of 2:26:44.
That year was also pivotal for U.S. distance running. Inspired by the club system in England, Browning Ross formed the Road Runners Club of America (RRCA) and encouraged the creation of chapters around the country. Ted was reluctant to get involved on the administrative side of the sport—he was working full time and training intensely while he and Ruth raised their young son, Gary—but his peers convinced him to become the first president of the Road Runners Club–New York Association, later renamed NYRR. Founded in June 1958, the club put on seven races in its first year. Ted and other NYRR founding members are pictured below.
Ted started a quarterly newsletter; he'd stay up late into the night typing at the kitchen table. “I spent years doing administrative stuff in the background to help our sport survive and grow,” he said. “It needed to be done and I did it.”
Ted’s training during this period was legendary. He prepared for marathons and ultras (distances longer than 26.2 miles) by running 20 miles each way to and from work, doing 31-mile loops around Manhattan, and venturing miles north into Westchester county. His logs show frequent 200-mile training weeks and several weeks of 300+ miles. Marathons were often mere training runs as he focused on longer and more grueling ultras, including England's renowned 52-mile London-to-Brighton race.
Throughout his life, Ted remained a student of the sport, eager to learn and grow. “You have to go through a lot to discover what the possibilities are,” he said. He applied the same philosophy to physical therapy, using massage, resistance training, stretching, nutrition, hydration, rest, and other tools to treat and prevent injuries.
Striving for Accuracy and Inclusivity
In the early 1960s Ted wanted to create a national marathon competition that would pit eastern against western runners. There was just one problem: Runners couldn't compare times on different courses due to the lack of measurement standards. This sparked a new mission for Ted—one that would become perhaps his greatest contribution to the sport. He compiled data and analysis on the various methods of course measurement and published Measuring Road Running Courses, which gave rise to the RRCA’s course certification program. Ted led the first national standards committee to promote accurate road course measurement.
In the 1970s, Ted spearheaded an effort by NYRR to put on races for masters runners—those over age 40. The idea took hold when formulas Ted designed showed these athletes could outperform rivals half their age. As the concept grew, hordes of runners came out of retirement, and many novices took up competing, eager to prove that over 40 wasn’t over the hill. Ted himself continued to compete into his 80s, running 68.9 miles in a 24-hour run at age 82.
Ted also spoke up for the inclusion of more women in the sport—something he had championed since his days as NYRR's first president. While women's running boomed in the 1970s and 80s, racial integration lagged; road racing in particular remained overwhelmingly white. Reflective of the experience of many Black distance runners, then and now, Ted felt the sting of racism and discrimination. He was stopped by police officers hundreds of times while training, for no reason other than the color of his skin. He maintained hope that times would change, and he became a role model for the underrepresented in race, age, and gender groups, in running and beyond. Gary Corbitt has spoken of his father’s “quiet activism” in this regard.
Ted Corbitt, a quiet, humble man who spent hours training in solitude, touched the lives of countless runners and continues to inspire to this day. He pushed boundaries and redefined possibilities, inspired by a passion for running and a desire to give back. We thank him for all he’s given to us.
Portions of this post originally appeared in “The Quiet Revolutionary” by Sabrina Tillman, New York Runner, Spring 2008. The book Corbitt by John Chodes (2010) was a valuable source of factual information. To learn more about Ted Corbitt, head to tedcorbitt.com, a site maintained and curated by Gary Corbitt.