10/11/23: The Marathon

The marathon, is a distance and race that to some is a very daunting task but for others, it comes to them somewhat easily. The marathon is the epitome of running and it is possibly the ultimate challenge for any runner of all skill levels. Today I will be talking about the marathon and some great performances that have happened as of late.

The name of the event, the marathon, comes from the legend of Philippides, the Greek messenger. The legend goes that the messenger was a part of the Battle of Marathon. During that battle he saw a Persian ship attempting to go into the city of Athens to possibly claim a false victory or simply raid the city, this showed for the messenger that the Greek had beaten the Persians. After seeing this, the messenger ran to Athens WITHOUT stopping, along the way he lost as much weight as possible by shedding his clothes and weapons, once he arrived in Athens he went into the assembly and exclaimed the Greek term νενικήκαμεν which means "We have won", according to legend the messenger passed out and died following saying this.

The distance the messenger ran was only 25 miles which is 1.2 miles shorter than the modern marathon distance, 26.2 miles. The origin of the modern marathon distance is in the 1908 London Olympics where the course was lengthened from the distance at the time which was around 25 miles to accommodate the Royal Family. They did this because Queen Victoria wanted the race to start on the lawn of Windsor Castle, and she wanted it to finish in the Olympic Stadium in front of the Royal Box. The distance of the race just happened to be 26.2 miles (42.195 kilometers). This distance somehow stuck and was made the official marathon distance in 1921.

Another thing that has changed since the first marathon other than race distance is how fast the athletes run the race. Over the past couple of weeks, some of the fastest times and performances have been recorded, let me tell you about the best ones

Starting it off, Eliud Kipchoge the fastest human being to run the marathon distance*, ran his fifth marathon in under two hours and three minutes at the Berlin Marathon, a statistic that no one else owns. Kipchoge also has won the Berlin Marathon a total FIVE times, he now has won it the most as he passed Haile Gebrselassie for the record.

Also happening at the Berlin Marathon was the World Record in the women’s marathon as Tigist Assefa broke the previous record by almost three minutes. By doing so Assefa also ran a personal record of four minutes, Assefa has a lot of potential and she has a long and illustrious marathon career waiting for her.

This past weekend at the Chicago Marathon we saw one of the fastest and greatest performances ever in the marathon. The winner of this race, Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya didn't just win but he ran away with the World Record as he became the first person ever to break 2 hours and 1 minute in the marathon* Also in the Chicago marathon, Sifan Hassan, Hassan is now undefeated in her two marathons. You may know Hassan from her great Olympic and World Championship performances on the track but now she has switched to the marathon and is doing well. Hassan will be a huge threat to the World Record and possibly the Olympic or World title in the event if she runs it at those major championships. The last person I want to talk about is Des Linden, one of the greatest American distance runners ever. Linden has placed well in a lot of world majors and this weekend in her first race in the masters division she ran a new American Masters Record at the Chicago Marathon

*Eliud Kipchoge's sub-two-hour performance was not a World Athletics legal time