Part 1: The Persistence of Running

In 690 BCE King Taharka of Egypt implemented a challenge for his troops stationed to the Southwest of Cairo. He challenged the troops to run a pre-designed route from Saqqara to Faiyum. The distance was 100km, or about 62 miles. The winner allegedly finished the race in about 8 hours. This race continued for 25 years in Egypt. Today you can sign up and run this route if you want to be like the Ancient Egyptians. The Pharaonic Race 100km is listed as a bonus event on the Egypt Marathon’s website for anyone brave enough to try it.

Other races appear in record books from time to time. The Ancient Greeks had running in their Olympic games, There was a 10k race in the 1200’s in Verona, Italy. A 5k race in Scotland in the 1500’s. But organized races didn’t really take off until the 1890’s.

Before running became popular a sport called Pedestrianism was all the rage in the 1800’s. People would compete in events where they would walk hundreds of miles over a several day period for cash prizes. The sport made its way to the US with one participant walking from Maine to Chicago in under 30 days. This sport evolved in to what today we think of as speed-walking or race-walking.

The first modern marathon was run in the 1896 Olympics as an homage to the legend of Pheidippides, a messenger, who supposedly ran from the city of Marathon to the city of Athens to warn the people of incoming invaders. The name Marathon comes from the city he started from. The distance between Marathon and Athens is about 25 miles.

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