The history of the Marathon

A lot of people ask me "How long is the Marathon?" "How far is the Marathon?"
What I learned awhile ago is that a Marathon is a Marathon is a Marathon - and all Marathon's are 42.195 Kilometers or 26 Miles, 385 Yards.

To put that into perspective, here is a little map of a 40.4 Kilometer route from Innovative Fitness in White Rock, B.C. to Science World in Vancouver, B.C.


View Larger Map

It is a 39 minute car ride or an 8 and a half hour walk. The average marathon is completed in about 4 hours and 30 minutes. Of running. Or jogging. Or running and walking - or many combinations thereof.

This information is taken from a Wikipedia post on Marathon -

The name marathon comes from the legend of Pheidippides, a Greek messenger. The legend states that he was sent from the town of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been defeated in the Battle of Marathon.[2] It is said that he ran the entire distance without stopping and burst into the Senate, exclaiming "Νενικήκαμεν" (Nenikékamen, 'We have won') before collapsing and dying.[3] The account of the run from Marathon to Athens first appears in Plutarch's On the Glory of Athens in the 1st century AD who quotes from Heraclides Ponticus's lost work, giving the runner's name as either Thersipus of Erchius or Eucles.[4] Lucian of Samosata (2nd century AD) also gives the story but names the runner Philippides (not Pheidippides).[5]