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Now, I’m not trying to invite a similar
fate, but my preparation for the run
has been, to say the least, casual. As the
weeks that I should have spent training
came and went, I reasoned that historical
inspiration alone would see me through,
horrifying friends who had actually
trained for marathons. Nevertheless,
pondering the speciousness of the legend
as I stand there on the ba lefield is sap-
ping my morale. I realize that the sun is
ge ing stronger by the second. It’s 10:15
and already pushing 90 degrees. Well,
there’s no time like the present. As I turn
toward Athens and tentatively put one
foot in front of the other, I begin listen-
ing to Herodotus’ accounts of the Persian
Wars onmy iPhone. The audiobook, while
abridged, is over four hours long, giving
me an outside chance, I figure, of finishing
the run before the tale is told.
I’m not on the road long before I see
signs, placed every few miles, that tell
me I’m on the route of the Athens Classic
Marathon. It was first run in 1896 as the
showpiece event of the inaugural modern
Olympic Games. Organizers of the revived
Olympics wanted an exciting finale that,
like the games themselves, harkened back
to the glory of classical Greece. Playing off
the run of Pheidippides, they devised an
event that proved immediately popular,
especially among Greeks who were
proudly acquainted with the legend. The
marathon began near the ba lefield and
ended in Athens’ Panathinaiko Stadium,
rebuilt in resplendent marble on the site
of the original stadium dating from the
sixth century B.C.; this turned out to be
a distance of 24.9 miles. The home crowd
was understandably ecstaticwhenaGreek
water carrier, Spyridon “Spyros” Louis,
won, coming in at a respectable two hours
and 58 minutes.
The now standard 26 miles, 385 yards,
was initially run in 1908, when London
hosted its first Olympics. Organizers
decided the race would begin at Windsor
Castle and end at the Olympic Stadium
in Shepherd’s Bush, a distance of 25 miles
or so. Complaints about cobblestones
and tram lines caused the course to be
lengthened, as did a revised starting
point and finish line. Despite all the 11th-
hour changes, though, the 1908 Olympic
marathon was a huge success, sparking
marathon mania the world over. The
first seven Olympiads saw six different
distances used, ranging from24.85 to 26.56
miles, but in 1921 it was decided that the
distance used in London would be the
standard. It’s been the length used in the
91 years and countless marathons since.
f course, modern-daymarathoners
enjoy the benefit of food and drink
stations, medics with numbing
spray for aching joints and, most
important, an entire car-free side of the
highwaywith two lanes of asphalt at their
disposal. But like Pheidippides himself, I’m
running solo, and as such am presented
with a few extra challenges. The highway
is intermittently busy with cars and
trucks, which o en careen onto the shoul-
der. Fearing death, I find myself running
on a very narrow
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