Research topic: marathon race

marathon race long-distance foot race deriving its name from Marathon, Greece. According to legend, in 490 BC, Pheidippides, a runner from Marathon, carried news of victory over the Persians to Athens. In the first modern Olympics of 1896, a commemorative event retraced his route. The race soon became an Olympic event, its distance standardized in 1908 at 26 mi, 385 yd (42.195 km). The popularity of running as part of a physical fitness boom in the 1970s engendered a proliferation of marathons, some of them televised. Races in Tokyo, New York City, and elsewhere joined the famed Boston... Read more