Saturday, March 21, 2009

Trivia about Marathons

Everyone keeps asking me, "How long is a marathon, anyway?" along with many other questions.

  • A marathon is 26.2 miles.

  • The marathon commemorates the 25 mile run of Phidippides (a professional long-distance runner whose job was to communicate messages over long distances faster than a horse) to Athens, to announce the victory of the Greeks over the Persians in a historic battle.

  • Marathon running, as a competition, was introduced in the first modern Olympic games in Athens in 1896, still measuring at 25 miles.

  • In the London Olympics of 1908, the course was still 25 miles. Queen Alexandra requested that the course be changed so that she could watch the start from Buckingham Palace, thus extending the distance an extra 1.2 miles, to accomodate the queen. That distance has stuck and marathons are still run at 26.2 miles.

  • It's a tradition of marathoners to say, "God save the queen" at the 25 mile mark.

  • Only 1/10th of 1% of the population has ever completed a marathon, even with the popularity of marathon running growing by the thousands.

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