It's pretty much 20 miles fairly hard plus 10km extremely hard, to within 80m, what could be rounder a number than that!
It's pretty much 20 miles fairly hard plus 10km extremely hard, to within 80m, what could be rounder a number than that!
Ummmm...I just did a marathon and my Garmin says I did 26.4923 miles so I don't know what the OP is talking about with this 26.21876 nonsense.
garmin235 wrote:
For the next few Olympics, the length of the marathon remained close to 25 miles, but at the 1908 Games in London the course was extended, allegedly to accommodate the British royal family. As the story goes, Queen Alexandra requested that the race start on the lawn of Windsor Castle (so the littlest royals could watch from the window of their nursery, according to some accounts) and finish in front of the royal box at the Olympic stadium—a distance that happened to be 26.2 miles (26 miles and 385 yards). The random boost in mileage ending up sticking, and in 1921 the length for a marathon was formally standardized at 26.2 miles (42.195 kilometers).
From History.com article title “Why is a marathon 26.2 miles?”
Marathon distance has a quirky origin story and should be kept.
Half Marathons make no sense...10 mi or 20K are both better distances.
NewEnglandOldMan wrote:
an obvious answer wrote:
Why is a meter a meter? Makes no sense. Why is a foot 12 inches? Every single distance AND unit of measurement is arbitrary. Your argument is pointless.
This is flatly wrong. Not every unit of measurement is arbitrary. see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_UnitsMany are based on physical constants like the speed of lights, Planck constant, etc
Now the marathon and Smoot's and the Foot i'll agree, those are pretty arbitrary...
Can you give an example of a unit that is not arbitrary?
What is the unit of measure for the speed of light? It is something that is arbitrary.
https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=72295#72295let me google that for you wrote:
I know googling is hard, but how can you know of Pheidippes and not know the story of the marathon distance? Good thing garmin235 did your googling for you.
btw, google Pheidippedes, his story is probably not what you think either.
A cross country skiing marathon is 50K or 31.0686 miles. That's 31 miles plus a football field.
tctctc wrote:
It's pretty much 20 miles fairly hard plus 10km extremely hard, to within 80m, what could be rounder a number than that!
We should make it exactly 20 miles + 10 kilometers to keep everyone happy.
tctctc wrote:
It's pretty much 20 miles fairly hard plus 10km extremely hard, to within 80m, what could be rounder a number than that!
So should we race the 10,047m instead of the 10K? It's pretty much 5 miles fairly hard plus 2km extremely hard, to within less than half a meter.
26.2 looks better on those little white oval bumper stickers than 25. It stays.
tctctc wrote:
It's pretty much 20 miles fairly hard plus 10km extremely hard, to within 80m, what could be rounder a number than that!
That's actually only 8 meters off
NewEnglandOldMan wrote:
an obvious answer wrote:
Why is a meter a meter? Makes no sense. Why is a foot 12 inches? Every single distance AND unit of measurement is arbitrary. Your argument is pointless.
This is flatly wrong. Not every unit of measurement is arbitrary. see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_UnitsMany are based on physical constants like the speed of lights, Planck constant, etc
Now the marathon and Smoot's and the Foot i'll agree, those are pretty arbitrary...
"One meter" used to be defined as "one ten-millionth of the length of a great circle quadrant along the Earth's meridian through Paris." But of course, this did not make sense since the earth is not a perfectly shaped ball.
garmin235 wrote:
For the next few Olympics, the length of the marathon remained close to 25 miles, but at the 1908 Games in London the course was extended, allegedly to accommodate the British royal family. As the story goes, Queen Alexandra requested that the race start on the lawn of Windsor Castle (so the littlest royals could watch from the window of their nursery, according to some accounts) and finish in front of the royal box at the Olympic stadium—a distance that happened to be 26.2 miles (26 miles and 385 yards). The random boost in mileage ending up sticking, and in 1921 the length for a marathon was formally standardized at 26.2 miles (42.195 kilometers).
From History.com article title “Why is a marathon 26.2 miles?”
This is the story that I was told too. Would be nice to stop at 40km but now it's 42.2. Oh well.
you're mistaken wrote:
Uh, it's not 26.2 miles. I have talked to lots of joggers in my town who run the 5K "marathon" every year over the July 4th holiday.
THis is a quality post
quit complaining. Nothing better to do. Run it and shut up!
The marathon is the perfect distance because the road mystics used to say the track guys would never be able to handle it. Then us track guys moved up to it and kicked the crap out of them and then they moved to the ultras. It is the symbol of track runners dominance over ultra runners. We don't want to do any distance longer to prove our dominance.
Are you one if those people who an extra block just to get a round number on Strava?
Who would want to change the Marathon distance after 112 years of history and records?!!! The event only existed for 12 years prior, before that distance was codified in the 1908 Olympics.
Plus, for anyone who has ran a marathon, that distance seems a perfect balance of endurance and speed. The final miles of a marathon are the real test and what makes it the event that it is.
BTW, what the h*ll is a "full marathon"? There's no such thing. The event is - wait for it - "the marathon." Everything else is something other than a marathon, e.g. an ultra, a half, or a mini (the last one a modifier that gained currency in the late 70s in re 10K road races).
imo, we should drop the 1500m for the 1600m since it makes chronological sense. 3200m should be the longest distance we do on the track and move all 5000/10000 distances to cross country courses