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| steve common |
 Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:13 am |
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See below for an extract from
http://www.marathonguide.com/history/olympicmarathons/prologue.cfm
die-hard running snobs and romantic dreamers will still want to believe
the old "run to Athens and drop dead" bollocks, and may they be ever
happy doing so, but Philippides ran the first *Spartathlon*, not the
first marathon.
And even if some hypothetical foot messenger did run from Marathon to
Athens at the end of the battle against the Persians, it wasn't a
marathon as we know it (42.195km), but an "around 25 mile" trail race.
And I'll bet a beer that anyone insisting he wasn't allowed any walking
breaks would've found a message scroll (at best) wedged somewhere
uncomfortable.
=========================================================
While the massive Persian army landed, the Athenians sent a messenger
named Philippides (his name was corrupted in later texts to
Pheidippides) to Sparta to enlist the aid of the Spartans in the
upcoming battle. He covered the distance of about 150 miles in less than
two days, a remarkable accomplishment by any standard.
Back at Marathon, however, the decision was made not to wait for the
Spartans. The Athenian army fell upon the vastly larger Persian forces
while they were still preparing for battle. Against great odds, the
Greeks prevailed. Though historians writing close to the time of the
battle make no mention of the event, writers some 600 years later claim
that a runner was dispatched to Athens to carry the news of the great
victory. According to legend he reached the city, said, "Rejoice, we
conquer," and fell to the ground dead. Though one source gives the
runner's name as Philippides, it is highly unlikely that he would have
made such a run after having just run to Sparta. If he had, contemporary
historians would surely have noted it.
Whether any messenger at all was sent to Athens with the news of victory
is a matter of some doubt, but certainly Philippides was not the
messenger. Still, in the centuries that followed, the legend of
Pheidippides (as he began to be called) and the legend of a runner who
died to bring news of victory to the Athenians merged, and many later
writers gave the name Pheidippides to the ill-fated runner. In the
nineteenth century Robert Browning wrote in his Dramatic Idylls of
Pheidippides' dash to Athens, his announcement of victory, and his
death. Though Pheidippides was certainly not the runner who carried the
news of Greek victory to Athens, and though it seems unlikely that any
professional foot courier of ancient Greece would have perished after
such a run, the legend took hold, and out of that legend grew the modern
marathon race. |
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| Danglynnn |
| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 9:11 pm |
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steve common <steven.common@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message news:<lvlaf09hflrelangnn959f0oq18l7bs9k8@4ax.com>...
Quote: Philipiddes never ran a marathon
Um who cares. It doesn't count if it does or not, it has millions or
thousands of legs, so it makes running easy. However I still doubt a
little bug could make 26 miles. |
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| rick++ |
| Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 11:12 am |
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The idea someone could run hours and hours probably seemed quite mythical
until a few decades ago. The few that did were either considered
supermen or nuts.
The current marathon distance was not standardized until the 4th modern Olympics.
Until then it was just a 20+ mile race.
America and germanic Europe had a few running booms in the 19th and 20th
centuries. These were stimulated by the ideal of the "noble savage".
People like J.F. Cooper wrote novels about Indians who ran for "hours and
hours" silently across forest paths for hunting or travel.
Dozens of exercise programs were promulgated in the 20th century.
But the one that took off was K. Cooper's 1968 Aerobic Point System.
Running was the most efficient way reach the top of his scale (which
topped out at ten miles of fast running a week). Thousands of people learned
they could run "hours and hours" and the rest is history. |
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