In the 5th Century a bloke called Phidippides was a professional runner.\u00a0 To cut a very long story short, at the battle of Marathon the Athenian army was defeated the odds and gave the Persians something of a major kick in.\u00a0 Outnumbered 4 to 1 they launched a surprise but seemingly suicidal offensive.\u00a0 Astonishingly, by day’s end, 6,400 Persian bodies lay dead on the field against 192 Athenian casualties! The surviving Persians fled to sea and headed south to Athens where they hoped to attack the city before the Greek Army could re-assemble there.<\/p>\n
Phidippides was asked to run 26 miles to Athens to carry the news of the victory and the warning about the approaching Persian ships.\u00a0 He had already run to Sparta and back (3 days) and had been fighting all day\u2026but he went for it.\u00a0 Taking 3 hours he got the message to those concerned and promptly dropped dead from exhaustion.\u00a0 Out of that less than encouraging beginning, the marathon challenge was born!<\/p>\n
You may or may not know, I am currently in training to run the London Marathon<\/a> at the end of April.\u00a0 To be honest with you, its been a bit of an ask to get out there in the freezing cold during winter and run for what seems like an endless period of time for no reason other than to be able to run further the next time I go out.\u00a0 Further more, sometimes I\u2019ve been wondering why on earth I\u2019m doing it as in the real world I will never actually need to run 26.2 miles.\u00a0 I mean, there are far more civilised ways to get about\u2026<\/p>\n