Marathon, Myths and More

Saturday, September 25th marked the 2500th anniversary of the fabled story of Phidippides’ run from Marathon to Athens. The basic tale has all the trappings of legend. However, folklore from Athens to London gives differing accounts for the actual distance Phidippides covered and how our modern marathon race came to be 26.2 miles. I encourage you to read some of the tales, fanciful and more factual, to make your own decision. This is one of the few exceptions where I care less about the precise history; I just love the idea of the run.

Carlos Museum of Emory University commemorated the anniversary with a 2.62 race. No, that is not one of my notorious typos, the museum held a Dolichos (Greek for a running a short race) to be followed by a Greek symposium. I wanted to run the race, but instead logged 7.38 miles with the running clinic. Of course the topic of the Marathon anniversary came up as runners chatted along the course.

While I ran with the group I remembered nostalgically running the same course of the Olympic Marathon held in Atlanta for the 1996 Games in Atlanta. I recalled a couple of years later when in Athens, Greece, I ran portions of the Olympic Marathon track. Today was a fun day to think about the history of running, about Marathon as history and as a race.

Thanks to story tellers, race coordinators and of course a special thank you to Phidippides for this very special event that few experience and even fewer come to love.

Happy Anniversary.

Tom