The Olympics are finally underway — I haven’t seen any track and field events yet, but I thought this might be a good time to talk about marathons. A marathon covers 26.2 miles (42.2km) — that always seemed to be a peculiar distance to me. But the fact that the marathon is such a staple fixture in modern day athletics, I thought this peculiar distance deserved my extensive research.
As you might expect, my extensive research takes us back to Ancient Greece —to the Greco-Persian wars in 490 BC. As the legend goes, it all started with the most famous runner in ancient Greece, a soldier named Philippides (his name was later corrupted in text to Pheidippides.) For much of the fifth century, BC, the Greeks were at odds with the neighboring Persian Empire. In 490 BC, the mighty Persians, led by Darius I, attacked the Greeks at the city of Marathon. Despite being badly outnumbered, the Greeks managed to fend off the Persian troops — and, ended Darius’s attempts at conquering Greece.
After the victory, Pheidippides ran in full armor from Marathon to Athens — about 25 miles — to announce the good news. After several hours of running through the rugged Greek countryside, he arrived at the gates of Athens crying, “Rejoice, we conquer!” as the Athenians rejoiced. Pheidippides then fell over dead.
Even though there was a lot of debate about the accuracy of this story, the legend stuck with the Greek population and when the modern Olympic Games were revived in Athens in 1896, a long-distance running event known as a “marathon” was introduced.
So the marathon certainly has ancient roots, but the race’s official length of 26.2 miles wasn’t established until the 20th century. In the first two modern Olympic Games, the “Pheidippides distance“ (about 25 miles) was used as the marathon distance. But things changed in 1908, when the Olympic Games were held in London. The British Olympic committee determined that the marathon route would start at Windsor Castle and end at the royal box in front of London’s newly built Olympic Stadium, a distance that happened to measure 26 miles, 385 yards.
There doesn’t seem to have been any good reason for the whims of the British lords, but 26.2 miles somehow became ingrained in the sport. By the 1924 Olympics in Paris, the arbitrary distance had become the standard for all marathons.
Marathons seem to get more popular every year — and not just as an Olympic sport. Every year in cities like Boston, New York and Chicago, thousands of professionals and amateurs turn out to participate. Of course, a lot of wiser people remember what happened to Pheidippides…
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