History of Marathons

Okay first off I just wanted to let you guys know that I have been having a little confusion with where exactly to make new blogs and have been apparently making an entire new blog each week on my research topic of running.  Thanks to Brandon though, he showed me that all you need to do is simply click new post, so if you are wondering where my other blogs are they are just under my main page with all my blogs, but if you are unable to reach them just contact me for their URLs.

Anyway this week I have chosen to look up information about the history of running marathons.  I was just curious as to how long ago the first marathon took place and thought why not research that topic this week.  Also I would love to and plan to run marathons in the near future, so why not get some background information on the beginnging of them first.

 

Athens, Greece was officially the first place to hold the first known marathon.  It was also the same path that was later used in the 2004 Olympics games in Greece.  Now isn't that cool!  The running event, better known as the marathon recieved it's name from the name of the city Marathon, Greece, when the soldier Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens to pass on the new of victory from a battle they won against the Persians.  After the run though Pheidippiddes sadly passed away. (How sad, he had worked so hard to deliver an important message, than to drop dead after it all, atleast he founded the marathon!)  He had run 24.85 miles, but a marathon today consists of 26.2 miles, which was the official distance since the 1924 Olympics and on.  The extra mileage was added to the distance of a marathon apparently because in the 1908 Olympics the course ran from Windsor Castle to White City Stadium and they wanted the marathon to end right in front of "royal family's viewing box" (Athens Marathon).  (Talk about high maintenance to the royalty...)  That is apparently where the phrase "God Save the Queen!" came from when runners shout that passing the 24th mile.



The first actualy Olympics in Greece took place in 1896 finishing with the marathon as the last marvel.  There were only 25 runners competing in the race and of those 25 only nine finished the marathon, eight of them being homeland Greeks.  The first to finish was a hometown hero to the Greeks, finishing in two hours and 58 minutes (this was with the 24.85 mile distance).  Now a days athletes are completing the 26.2 mile race in much faster times, for women the fastest time to date is tho hours and fifteen minutes, which was reached in 2003 and for men the fastest time is two hours and three minutes, which was completed in 2008.  These are some amazing times and I predict they will soon be beat in the near future.

I just thought all of this to be quite fascinating, and I am learning quite a bit more about running than I had expected.  I will continue to look for appealing topics on running. Something a little more interesting like my first one on barefoot running!



http://www.athensmarathon.com/marathon/history.html

http://www.marathonguide.com/history/records/alltimelist.cfm?Gen=F&Sort=Time

http://www.marathonguide.com/history/records/alltimelist.cfm?Gen=M&Sort=Time

http://www.lakepowell.net/marathon.html