Today we have the London marathon and one must admire anyone who attempts it. But just how long is it and why is it that length?
\nThe name, “marathon”, comes from the legend of Pheidippides, a Greek soldier, who was sent from the town of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been miraculously defeated in the Battle of Marathon. It is said that he ran the entire distance without stopping, but moments after proclaiming his message to the city he collapsed dead from exhaustion.
\nThere are two roads out of the battlefield of Marathon towards Athens, one more mountainous towards the north whose distance is about 21.4 miles (34.5 km), and another flatter but longer towards the south with a distance of 25.4 miles (40.8 km). It has been successfully argued that the ancient runner took the more difficult northern road because at the time of the battle there were still Persian soldiers in the south of the plain.
\nIn modern times, the choice of distance for different so-called marathon races was somewhat arbitrary. The first modern Olympics in 1896 had a marathon distance of 24.85 miles (40 km). Before the 1908 Olympics, the official marathon distance was exactly 26 miles.
\nHowever, since 1908 the well known 26 mile marathon has actually been 26 miles, 385 yards. This is because, for the 1908 Olympics in London, it was decided that the royal family needed a better view of the finish line. The race started at Windsor Castle and organisers added an extra 385 yards to the race so the finish line would be in front of the royal box.
\nFrom that point, the marathon distance became 26 miles, 385 yards (41.195 km). The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) adopted the distance as the “official” marathon distance in 1921.
\nHowever you look at it, it’s a LONG way – especially in today’s heat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today we have the London marathon and one must admire anyone who attempts it. But just how long is it and why is it that length? The name, “marathon”, comes from the legend of Pheidippides, a Greek soldier, who was sent from the town of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}