We’re beginning to hear a lot about the Olympics in the news as the opening ceremonies grow closer. I guess now would be a good time to talk marathons. If you check the archives of this blog, you can find out how the official distance of a marathon came about. But today I’d like to talk about maybe the “original” marathon runner in whose name the modern marathon was established….
To start at the beginning, Marathon was a place before it was a race — consisting of ten square miles of open land just northeast of Athens. During the summer of of 490 B.C., it was a battlefield where the soldiers of the Greek army fought the Persians. The Greeks were the underdogs, being outnumbered by the Persians by more than two to one.
The Greek general, Militates, knew he was outnumbered and decided what he needed was some Spartans (Greece’s best trained and fiercest soldiers.) The army had a stable of messengers — runners who were the elite athletes of the day, trained to cross difficult terrain in a short amount of time. The general sent his strongest messenger, Pheidippides (fi-DIP-uh-dees) to go for some Spartans.
Pheidippides ran nearly 100 miles, up and down hills in the summer heat, through enemy territory to the Spartan camp. When he arrived, the Spartans were in the middle of a religious ceremony, so the Greek army would have to wait a few days for reinforcements. Pheidippides then ran back to camp to give Militates the bad news.
So, without reinforcements, Militates waged a brilliant attack on the Persians by using smaller, faster, lighter units of troops to surround the slower, more numerous Persian troops. The Persians retreated back to their ships.
Turns out that the Spartans arrived later that same day.
Obviously, Militates was pleased with his victory so he dispatched his best runner to bring the good news to Athens — a distance of almost 25 miles. Pheidippides raced to Athens, entered the city, and exclaimed, “Nike!” (which means “victory”) — I’m pretty sure the shoe company had heard this story…. but — then Pheidippides collapsed and died.
The modern marathon was established in Pheidippides’s honor.
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