IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF GIANTS
Every time someone runs a marathon, they metaphorically retrace steps taken during one of the most momentous events in world history, the Battle of Marathon in 490BCE. A few thousand Athenian and Parthian soldiers, led by the warrior Miltiades destroyed a huge force of invading Persians on the plain of Marathon, a victory widely acknowledged to have ensured the democratic legacy of Western culture.
The significance of the Hellenic victory has not gone underestimated, either then or now. The poet and dramatist Aeschylus fought at Marathon (his brother was one of the 192 dead, compared to thousands of Persians). But when Aeschylus died, not one word of his literary achievements made it onto his tombstone, only the fact that he had fought at Marathon.
Similarly, though every schoolchild in the UK knows how the Battle of Hastings in 1066 altered the course of British history and culture, the celebrated 18th century philosopher and political theorist John Stuart Mill maintained that, in the grand scheme of things, ‘Marathon’ was a far more important event to Britons than ‘Hastings’.
However, the tale that most people know about events in 490BCE is that a messenger named Phillipides or Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens to announce the victory, then collapsed and died. Out of that legend, the marathon race was born.
But the original legend, whose first report was 600 years after the battle (thus highly questionable) was that the messenger first went to Sparta to ask for help, was rebuffed, and ran back to Marathon, before going to Athens to announce victory. Dying after a trek like that made far more sense, since the round trip, across impossibly rough, hilly terrain (and no tarmac roads 2500 years ago) is around 500 kilometres, and he did it allegedly in two or three days.
Which is why every long distance runner in the world should want to run from Marathon to Athens at least once.
And if you haven’t done it yet, or even if you have, then next year is the year. For 2010 is the 2500th anniversary of the Battle of Marathon. And the organisers of the Athens Classic Marathon, on October 31, 2010 are preparing for another invasion, but a friendly one this time.
The race has had a chequered history since effectively being launched with, not the inaugural modern Olympic race, but with a trial race on the same course a few weeks before, in spring of 1896. But while the Boston AA launched their own race the following year, and have staged it in one form or another (a relay during wartime) for a century and a dozen years since then, Athens has had a history of hiccups, ie on and off, and on again. At one time, there were two a year, one in Spring, the other in Autumn. But in its latest incarnation, next year will be the 28th edition of the Athens Classic Marathon.
The elite race has been relatively low-key until recent years, getting a pre-Olympic boost in 2000 by sponsorship from Alpha Bank, who still remain principal sponsor nine years later. But overall marathon numbers have stayed relatively small, due partly to restricted space at the start area in Marathon, and for reasons of safety at the marble Panathinaiko stadium, built for 1896, in Athens.
There were around 3,600 finishers in this year’s race a month ago. But a provisional limit of 10,000 (roughly the same as the Hellenic army in 490BCE) has been mooted for next year, with a possibility of up to 13,500. Registration is due to open in Spring, ie February/March 2010.
If you’ve not run the course, be warned, it’s one of the most difficult of the modern popular marathons. After a relatively flat first 10k, which takes runners on a detour around the tumulus (burial ground) of the Athenian dead - the Parthians have their own burial ground - the course rises until around 32k. So half the race is uphill. But then the last part is downhill all the way.
Bit like life, really.
* race website - www.athensclassicmarathon.gr
November 29th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Pat, does Bill Adcocks’ record still stand? Is there solid proof that the course that he ran then (1969?..) is precisely the same as the modern one? Organisers, apprised that the distance is short, sometimes discreetly extend it, without any public announcement. When i met Frank Shorter in Boulder, in the early 80s, he told me how the Fukuoka organisers had taken him to the original turning point, on which Clayton had set his ‘world record’, then to the new one, quietly removed to a point some distance further down the road, after they’d remeasured the course.
And with all due respect to Derek, the hardest of men, is it generally known that the Antwerp course, on which he set his subsequent sub-2′ 09″ time, was never accurately measured at all? The guys went round the road part in the car, then estimated the off-road distance to the finish. That’s how things were done in Belgium in those days. Believe me, I know, I lived there for 10 years!
As you probably also know, the NYC course has been remeasured and discreetly ‘adjusted’ more than once. I guess that these days, with GPS, course distance is no longer an issue. But, as one of life’s cynics, I still wonder…
Best,
Tim J
November 29th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Hi Tim,
Stefano Baldini’s Olympic win in 2004, in 2.10.55, broke Bill’s course record of 2.11.07, but ‘04 was hot (mid-30sC) and humid whereas Bill’s win in ‘69 was in one of those years when there were two races, his was in April, in much cooler conditions.
Bill tells a good tale that says much about the arrogance and intransigence of the national federation back then. He was originally refused permission to travel, because there was no team manager available to hold his hand. He was only ‘allowed’ to go at the last minute when a former member of the federation, who had moved to live in Athens agreed to host him!
November 30th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
It’s good to see the anniversary getting coverage this early. I hope this might be the year the story starts to get told right. In brief, Herodotus, forty years after the Battle of Marathon, interviewed soldiers who had fought there for his “History,” so there is some authenticity in his version. He tells that the “day-runner” Pheidippides was sent from Athens to seek help from the Spartans, 150 miles away. They said “next week, maybe.” So P had to run 150 miles back with that bad news. The key part of the story for Herodotus is that during his return run, P met the god Pan, who gave him a message for the Athenians. Nothing about running from the battle or falling down dead. Various stories of messengers who collapsed and died while announcing victory were current 600 years later (no telling when they began, as Plutarch c110AD cites sources that have disappeared). It was Lucian, who died c200AD, who first named Pheidippides in the collapse & die role, while discussing the greeting “Rejoice!” As an example, he cites “the runner P who announced the victory at Marathon…in these words, ‘Rejoice! We are victorious.” Robert Browning combined all these story elements (run to Sparta & back plus Pan plus run from Marathon to Athens plus Rejoice we conquer) into one of his last narrative poems, “Pheidippides,” in “Dramatic Idyls,” 1879. That was almost certainly where Professor Breal got the story, and the idea for proposing a “marathon race” in the 1896 Olympics. At least, no one has yet found an earlier C19 source that attributes the Marathon-Athens run to Pheidippides, and I’ve looked extensively. I now think Browning may have got the idea for the poem from his deceased wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s massive (and very boring) teenage poem, “Marathon,” though she doesn’t deal with the messenger stories. The best accurate account of the whole thing is the chapter “The Strange Literary Story of the Marathon” in my book “Running in Literature,” though I despair that anyone will ever read it.
Roger
November 30th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
I’m tempted to say that the above comes directly from Delphi, since Roger is definitely the oracular wisdom on this subject, being a professor of literature as well as a former cross country international and a masters’ record holder. And if it will alleviate his despair a notch, I have just re-read the chapter of his book, and like the rest of the tome, very illuminating it is too. And I would urge everyone to check it out.
Incidentally, the Prof Breal Roger mentions is the French historian, who was asked by his friend, the founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de Coubertin, to come up with an event which encapsulated the spirit of both Greece (where the revived Games were to be held, in 1896) and of the Olympic Games. Breal suggested a run from Marathon to Athens. You know the rest. And if you don’t, buy Roger’s book!
December 1st, 2009 at 6:47 pm
What an interesting blog this one is! I can’t add much I’m afraid except to say that, regarding Tim Johnston’s interesting and cynical take on distances - e.g. the measurement of running distances as in Antwerp and New York - and Athens, I remember when Said Aouita, in 1985, broke Dave Moorcroft’s 5000m track record of 13.00.41 by running 13.00.40 - i.e.one-hundredth of a second faster - and it was ratified.
But .01 second as a percentage of 780.41 seconds amounts to roughly 0.001%, and I simply questioned to the authorities of the time, whether the measurement of the track was as accurate to that level of percentage!!!! (and received no answer of course).
And many thanks for info on ‘Running in Literature’ - both I and Peter Radford (an author himself) will be interested in it!! Does it extend to ‘Wilson of the Wizard’, I wonder? Or is that not quite literature?
Yours in Sport, Craig.
December 10th, 2009 at 12:22 am
uww cool blog …
December 14th, 2009 at 3:41 am
Dudes, you can’t count. (Neither, it seems, can the organizers.) If Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens on Sept 12, 490 BC, as often suggested, then 489 full years elapsed between then and “zero” (i.e. Jan 1st, Year 1 CE), and therefore the 2,500th anniversary of his run falls on Sept 12th… 2011.
There is not “Year Zero.” The calendar goes from Dec 31st, 1 BCE to January 1st 1 CE, and 1 CE ends 365 days into the CE.
You (and maybe I) will be feeling pleased with ourselves for running what is in fact the 2,499th anniversary.