A marathon is 26 miles, 385 yards long!

The marathon, as a race, was started in part to commemorate the fabled run of the Greek soldier Pheidippides, a messenger from the Battle of Marathon (490 b.c.), who upon delivering his message, “We have won!” collapsed and died of his efforts. I can sympathize with him. Today, it is still an amazing effort, no matter what your finishing time, age, sex, religious affiliation or national heritage. And many today also collapse; but now it's into a nice long nap, taken in honor of that same Greek runner (or is it really just exhaustion?).

The marathon has an official distance of 42.195 kilometers (26 miles and 385 yards). That seems rather random… doesn’t it? So as Amy and I start our training in earnest, I thought a history lesson would be in order (did someone just mutter under their breath, “Oh brother.”)

Join me in the way-back machine as we travel to the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. In that day, the length of the marathon was agreed to be about 25 miles (or 40 kilometers). Seems reasonable to me. So when the route is published in the London newspapers, it was to start at Queen Victoria's statue by Windsor Castle and finish at the Olympic Stadium in London. Upon review, there were protests as the run would cross tram lines and cobble stones. Were they thinking safety first? Runners would enter the stadium using the Royal Entrance tunnel, take a final lap and finish in front of the Royal Box. Quite prim and proper, eh what? Honor the sovereign. Jolly good show!! But no one told the organizers that the Royal Entrance had been elevated to allow King and Queen to more easily descend from the royal carriage, so a big… no go for that as an entrance. And, “while you are at it,” let’s move the start to the monarch’s private East Terrace of Windsor Castle (the start is pictured above right), so the public would not interfere with the King and Queen watching the start. With the course changes, the distance from Windsor to the stadium was then exactly 26 miles. But as it was the Olympics and the organizers wanted the finish line to end in front of the Royal Box, the runners would enter the stadium, run clockwise (all other track events ran counter clockwise, as they do today) a distance of exactly 385 yards. In 1921, this distance was officially adopted by the International Amateur Athletic Federation as the marathon’s distance. So now you know... 26 miles, 385 yards!

 Phew… that was exhausting. Suffice it to just say, “It’s good to be king.”