The Marathon.

Well, the runk is still in place, but rather than whine, i'm going to talk about the Marathon.


I think its safe to say the marathon is the ultimate goal for most runners, and that most people reading this have either run a marathon, are training for a marathon, or someday plan on running a marathon.  


Do we all realize that the marathon race was created to honor the fatal run of pheidippides?  This dude ran all the way from the battleground (named marathon) to Athens (after which we can only assume he, ya know, fought in a battle) so that he could tell the athenians that they had defeated the persians.  

 Lets review:


1.  He fought in a war.  And just so we're clear, I'm no historian, but i am pretty sure battles were way harder back then.  No machine guns, no riot gear, no dummy robot bomb dropping planes.  People actually had to fight each other.  With hand weapons.  Have you ever engaged in hand to hand combat with someone?  I assume it's exhausting.  


2.  After the battle, he then ran as fast as he could to let Athens know they won the battle.  This brings up some valid questions, because i thought they had horses back then.  Or maybe birds that deliver messages...nevermind, that was game of thrones...either way, that was one long hard run on some tired legs.  and i am sure their weren't people handing him dixie cups of gatorade and bananas along the way.


3.  I understand that it was an important message, but did he really need to run like the wind to tell the athenians that they won?  i mean, it's not like they lost.  Couldn't they have waited a few days?  I mean they won...


4.  They guesstimate that journey to be roughly 25 miles.  So Pheidippides ran 25 miles, but then he DIED.  So what do we do?  Tack on another mile for good measure.


5.  I don't know if this is accurate but i can't help but notice that in the picture above i stole from wikipedia that Pheidippides is totally naked.  And if i know anything about wikipedia, obviously it is 100% accurate regarding greek history.  Chafing could have been and probably was a factor in his death.  That and shame.

Here is a stature of created to show his epic run, only this time they put a skirt on him, for modesty's sake.  I have a running skirt that looks just like this, only in pink.  Also, maybe if you would have left the shield behind instead of dragging it with you for 25 miles, you wouldn't have died.  Just my two cents.


There is a lot more history on the marathon, but i thought this would be a good start.  We all pay lots of money, spend lots of time training, and make ourselves crazy, but in the end we get a shiny medal for not dying, like pheidippides did.