Why is the Marathon 26 miles 385 yards?

Herewith some wonderful sporting trivia for those who ever wondered why the marathon is such an odd distance.

If the truth be told it has virtually nothing to do with the Battle of Marathon, which was fought between the Athenians and the Persians in 490BC.

The closest to a contemporary account we have of the battle comes from the Greek historian Herodotus. He relates how a messenger named Pheidippides was dispatched by the Athenian commander to run to Sparta to seek military assistance. Pheidippides, a professional runner, knocked off the distance in two days, but returned with an unhelpful message. The Spartans would love to attend, he reported, but their religious customs forbade them to fight before the moon was full. This must have made them a pushover for any enemy with a calendar. As it was, the Athenians had to start without them, but thanks to playing a wing-backs formation they managed, against the odds, to rout a superior Persian army.

Pheidippides's endeavour fails to earn a mention in Pliny the Elder's essay on Great Running Feats of History. (But how can you take seriously a man who called himself after a tree?) The historian Plutarch, obviously with an eye on the movie rights, tells a different and more dramatic story of the battle. According to him, after the Greek victory a messenger was dispatched to run to Athens to relay the good news. This individual, Eucles, ran all the way in full armour and, on arriving, was able to pronounce only the words "Rejoice! We conquer" before dropping dead of exhaustion.

Then the picture was further muddied in the 19th century when Robert Browning published a rather ditsy poem entitled Pheidippides which combined both versions of the legend and has its hero running to Sparta and back, then fighting in the battle itself before sprinting off to Athens and finally pegging out. So the length of the original marathon run depends on whose account you choose to believe. The distance from Marathon to Athens is about 24 miles. The round trip from Athens to Sparta is approximately 145 miles. The combined journey would be about 169 miles (not including any additional mileage clocked up chasing fleeing Persians).

This didn't bother anyone until 1896 when the first modern Olympics were being planned. The idea of a distance race to commemorate Pheidippides's run came from a French linguist named Michel Brial who wanted to show off the expensive classical education for which his parents had forked out. Why anyone would want to institute a sporting event which had led to the death of its sole original practitioner is, of course, something of a mystery. Luckily the Olympic Committee decided to go with Plutarch's version of events (otherwise everyone in London this Sunday would be running a super-ultra-marathon and not finish till Wednesday) and set the distance of the inaugural race at a sensible 40 kilometres.

Such pragmatism would no doubt have persisted to the modern day had it not been for the intervention of Queen Alexandra. The 1908 Olympics were held in London, and Britain, still proudly in possession of an empire, refused to pander to non-imperial measurements. So a 25-mile course was planned that began at Windsor and finished in the newly built Olympic stadium in White City. This was until Her Majesty let it be known that she would like the race to start on the lawn at Windsor Castle so that Princess Mary and her children could watch from their nursery window.

In order to gratify this royal whim an extra mile had to be added to the beginning of the course. Then an additional 385 yards was appended to the end of the race so that it would finish under the Royal Box, thus ensuring that Her Majesty wouldn't have to go to the effort of raising her lorgnette to watch it. Some Olympic official no doubt got himself an earldom for this display of fawning, but marathon runners got themselves an extra mile and a bit to run. This has led to a tradition which survives to this day where marathon runners shout "God Save the Queen" (or some less respectful observation about Queen Alexandra) as they pass Mile 25.

The extra mileage almost proved fatal to the lead runner in the 1908 marathon, the Italian Dorando Pietri, who collapsed several times during the final lap of the stadium and was eventually carried over the finishing line by an over-zealous race official - an act which led to the athlete's disqualification. In the end this was no bad thing as, by way of apology, Queen Alexandra presented him with a gold cup and his glorious failure inspired a song by Irving Berlin.

Shouting "God save the Queen" will no doubt bemuse my fellow runners in the Marrakech marathon this Sunday, but it has to be done. Let us hope that her extra 2145 yards don't extract too great a price!

Extract from London Marathon: Runners go extra mile for royalty written by Russell Taylor, published in the Daily Telegraph 09/04/02