Marathon Origin Story
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The marathon origin story is a complex but fascinating tale that led to the long-distance running race that thousands compete in every year.
Unless you live under a rock, you probably have heard of the marathon running event, 26.2 miles of athletic endurance. But where did this event come from and what’s with the extra 0.2 miles?
You will learn the answers to these puzzling questions as well as other interesting facts about the origin of the long-distance running race called the marathon.
This post is all about the marathon origin story.
Marathon Origin Story
Ancient Greece
The story that inspired this feat of athletic endurance goes all the way back to Ancient Greece. In 490 BCE the battle of Marathon ensued with the Greeks making a surprising victory over the invading Persian forces.
After they won the battle, they needed to get the message of their victory to the nearby city of Athens to be sure the Greeks could boost the morale of their people and get ready for a possible counter attack.
The task of getting the victorious message to Athens fell to a man named Pheidippides. He ran as fast as he could the 25 miles to the city of Athens where he exclaimed “Nike!” (which means victory in Ancient Greek). He then collapsed dead of exhaustion.
The accuracy of this story is heavily debated among historians but the story still lead to the creation of the marathon athletic race.
Marathon Becomes Olympic Event
The first modern-day Olympics was held in 1896 and the organizers wanted to pay homage to Greece as the creator of the Olympic games. They decided to do this by designing a long-distance race of roughly 25 miles that was inspired by the story of Pheidippides.
The marathon race ended up being a very popular event of the Olympic games and the Greek athlete Spyridon Louis won the race.
Official Length of 26.2 miles
The length of the marathon race wasn’t made official until the London Olympic Games of 1908.
The race route was from Windsor Castle to the Olympic Stadium which was 26 miles. They added three hundred eighty-five yards to the end so the finish line was in front of the royal box.
In 1921 they ruled the race to be 26.2 miles long and it has been that way ever since.
Marathon Races Today
Today, just about anyone can train for and run a marathon race.
People run it for all sorts of reasons. Some run them as a challenge, some to compete, and some to break their PR (personal record). Others run the race to raise money for a good cause like cancer.
No matter the reason, running a marathon is an amazing feat that should make all marathon runners proud of this accomplishment.
