BLUF
The UK’s BBC examines the reasons why people run marathons.
Summary
This article about running marathons from the BBC makes the following points.
- At the 1896 Olympics in Athens, the first organised marathon involved only 17 athletes.
- The first modern marathon was run at the Athens Olympics in 1896.
- Spyridon Louis won in a time of 2:58:50 is about an hour slower than the fastest runners today.
- The London marathon now gets a quarter of a million applications for 50,000 places.
- There are obvious reasons why people run marathons, such as health and mental wellbeing.
- However, the harm from running a marathon could outweigh the benefits.
- Because running a marathon takes so much time and effort, the feeling of accomplishment is much greater than other sports.
- Men still run faster marathon times than women.
- Women are much more competitive against men over the longer distances of an ultra marathon.
- People may run repeat marathons because the brain may minimise the memory of the pain that comes with running a marathon.