Marathon

“ He lost his balance, and, being so exhausted that he could not stand longer, pitched headlong to the ground, just as the fleet Hugh jumped into the lead, raced twenty steps further, broke the extended tape, and thus won the race.
How the heavens seemed to fairly quiver with the roars that broke out! It had been a most thrilling finish for the greatest race ever run in all the country. Time might come and time might go, but never would those who had been so fortunate as to witness the conclusion of the Marathon forget the thrilling spectacle. ”

“ If Marathon prefers not to call a flivver a flivver, I shall not expostulate. And yet this quaint subterfuge should not be carried quite so far. Stone walls are made for sunny lounging; yet stone walls in Marathon are built with uneven vertical projections to discourage the sedentary. Nothing is more delightful than a dog; but there are no dogs in Marathon. They are all airedales or spaniels or mastiffs. If an ordinary dog should wag his tail up our street the airedales would cut him dead. Bless me, Nature herself has taken to the same insincerity. ”

“ The same is true in every field. The news of the victory of Marathon was borne by a runner, who coursed the twenty-four miles, gasped out his word of triumph, and dropped dead. Since then man has harnessed the ox, mounted the horse, and surpassed all other creatures in means of travel upon and within the waters, across the earth, high and higher in the air. ”

“ There had been more or less talk concerning the advisability of allowing school boys to undertake such a long Marathon race. Fifteen miles, many thought, was far too strenuous an undertaking for lads as yet in their teens. Full-fledged athletes only run twenty miles in all the famous long-distance races, and even at that numbers of them do not finish, the task being too much for them. ”

“ And so the run over the course of the Marathon race that was to be a leading feature of the athletic meet had been productive of several thrilling incidents that would not soon be forgotten by the three lads who were chiefly concerned. ”

“ The only question with the boys here is not whether you will win—they’re dead sure of that—but whether you’ll hang up a new record.”
“There really isn’t any such thing as a record for the Marathon,” said Bert. “The conditions are so different in each race that no one can fairly be compared with another. If it were simply a matter of padding around on a flat track, you could get at the time easily. ”

“ A still greater pitfall before us is that we read history not as men, but as gods, knowing the event. The name of Marathon to us implies not struggle, not danger, but triumph; and as we think of the little band of Athenians defiling from the mountains and looking on the sea, with the utmost determination we cannot quite enter into their thoughts. ”

“ Some grudging critics, including the erudite Mahaffy, incline to believe that Marathon was a rather small affair, judged by purely military standards—a conflict of one undisciplined host with an even less disciplined one, in an age when battles ordinarily were won by an endurance of nerve in the face of a hand-to-hand charge rather than by actual carnage. These maintain that the chief celebrity of Marathon rests not on its military glories, but on the fame which the Athenians, a literary race, gave it in song and story. ”

“ They began to divest themselves of their clothing and throw it behind bushes at the sides of the road. They were at last running like athletes clad in nothing more than trousers and shirts, and with bellowing chests and arms held to their sides. They strung out, according to their endurance, with David and Morgan in the lead, Goliath third, and Tim, the latest arrival from San Francisco, dropping slowly behind, but doggedly striving to carry on in this trying night marathon. ”

“ CHAPTER VII The First Marathon “By George!” exclaimed Dick, as he looked about him. “I wish we had a moving picture machine on board. This would make a dandy film.”
There was certainly motion enough to satisfy the most ardent advocate of the “strenuous life.” The deck was humming with life at its fullest. Two hundred young athletes in their picturesque costumes were working away as though their lives depended on it. Here a swimmer splashed in the tank and ran the gamut of all the strokes—the “side,” the “sneak,” the “crawl,” the “trudgeon.” ”

“ Fred had a pretty fair map of the region, which he had made from picking up information on every side. One of his motives in making this tour on Saturday morning, was to verify its truth. Once the route of the Marathon race had been issued, all those who expected to compete would have the privilege of going over the ground as often as they pleased. If any fellow were smart enough to discover how he could cut off a hundred yards or two, and yet report at every station, he was at liberty to do so.
A knowledge of the course often counts heavily in a Marathon race, as it does in many other things. ”

“ The chances of sickness or accident or change of climate were too many to justify them in depending upon a single competitor to carry the colors of his country in any given struggle. Thus in the pole vaulting, hammer throwing, swimming, hurdling, javelin casting, there would be from three to six competitors each. In the Marathon—most important of all—as many as a dozen would probably be taken. So that all were buoyed up by the hope that even if some luckier or better man carried off first honors to-day, they still might be of the elect, if they were well up at the finish. ”

“ Then there are a lot of other fellows in the run who may give him a pain. But, according to the programme, our race comes next after this pole vaulting contest; so, boys, we'd better be moving around, and getting our place in line, according to our several numbers."
CHAPTER XVIII THE GREAT MARATHON RACE It was plainly noticeable how that vast crowd began to stir, and show signs of increased interest when the numerous trim runners entered for the big Marathon started to gather for the preliminary stage of the race. ”

“ Marathon is only a vast plain, but what a plain! It has only a small mound in the centre to break its smoothness, but what courage, what patriotism, what nobility that mound covers! It was there, many authorities say, that all the Athenians were buried who fell at Marathon, although Byron claims that it covers the Persian dead.
How Greece has always loved freedom! In the École Polytechnique are three Turkish battle-flags and some shells and cannon-balls from a war so recent that the flags have scarcely had time to dry or the shells to cool. ”

“ If backed by a good horseman, the veriest brute, under these circumstances, makes the most of his own appearance. Marathon going within himself, playing lightly with his bit, and bringing his hind legs under his girths at every step, was a very different horse from the same Marathon extended and labouring, in a sticky ploughed field. ”

“ At Marathon every night you can hear horses neighing and men fighting. No one who has expressly set himself to behold this vision has ever got any good from it, but the spirits are not wroth with such as in ignorance chance to be spectators. ”

“ Thirdly, they can give us the key to the out-of-doors. In the ancient days they were great athletes, they raced and wrestled and leaped, for the pure joy of motion. What does Marathon mean, little schoolmate? Why do we call a race a Marathon? ”

“ Another proof that Marathon is patrician at heart is that nothing is known by its right name! The drug store is a "pharmacy," Sunday is "the Sabbath," a house is a "residence," a debt is a "balance due on bill rendered." A girls' school is a "young ladies' seminary," A Marathon man is not drafted, he is "inducted into selective service." ”

“ Well fed and not overworked, these private human trotters are often marvels of speed and endurance. I would like nothing better than to enter our wrinkled old la-che-ti in an Olympic marathon—though foreigners who have tried that sort of test find that the men cannot run without their vehicle, which is so balanced as to help lift them off the ground. Like the runners, the rickshaws of Peking range all the way from filthy half-wrecks to rickshaw-limousines. ”

“ They soon began to run and leave their wounded behind, and in place of a retreat their disorderly flight must have had the appearance of a Marathon race, the rattle of musketry acting or serving as signals for each to do his best on the home stretch. ”

“ A splendid body of athletes, twenty in number, had faced the starter, and at the crack of his pistol had darted off like greyhounds freed from the leash. They formed a magnificent picture of youth and vigor as they sped around the track. For the first mile or two they kept a fairly compact formation; but then the line began to lengthen. Some through weariness, others through craftiness, fell to the rear and let the others make the pace. By the time five miles had been covered, the sifting process began. Brawn and wind and staying power asserted themselves. ”

“ The investigation does not deal with the marathon running of the present day, but solely with the distances usually run in school and college—one half to two miles and cross-country seven miles.
Athletes from all parts of the country have been consulted, principally men who quit running years ago, and who have had ample time to note in their own persons the after effects of the training they underwent; men whose youthful enthusiasm has been sobered by years of business or professional life and whose judgment is therefore to be respected. ”

“ That's one reason we're dieting right now, so as to put ourselves in the finest possible physical condition."
"And lots of people just think when there's a Marathon race like this," ventured little Semi-Colon, "that a pack of crazy boys just strip to their running togs and start pell mell across country without a particle of system whatever. It's all wrong, because every move is mapped out beforehand by the wise ones. They know just what they can do in the way of speed, and how much reserve they're holding back against the rush over the home stretch. ”

“ Think of sitting out on that bluff on a warm evening, watching the broad shimmer of the river slipping down from the sunset, and smoking a serene pipe while the local flappers walk in the coolness wearing crisp, swaying gingham dresses. That's the kind of town we like to think about.
MAKING MARATHON SAFE FOR THE URCHIN
The Urchin and I have been strolling about Marathon on Sunday mornings for more than a year, but not until the gasolineless Sabbaths supervened were we really able to examine the village and see what it is like. ”

“ About ten years ago the fashion became a craze of contesting 'Marathon races' in which all sorts of distances, quite independent of the classic 261⁄4 miles, were employed. At rare intervals very long-distance running, such as 50 miles, is indulged in. ”

“ He seemed to be flying rather than running. Foot by foot he overtook the men in front. They knew from the startled roar of their partisans that he was coming, they heard the rushing feet behind them, and they called on every ounce of strength they had for a last desperate effort. For a moment they held their own, but only for a moment. With a terrific burst of speed that brought the yelling stands to their feet, he passed them as though they were standing still and breasted the tape a winner, in the fastest time ever recorded for the track. ”

“ Kostrubala is a dedicated runner who has completed many marathons and who uses running as a therapeutic approach in his practice.
Much of the modest amount of research on the psychotherapeutic value of exercise has focused on running, probably for the following reasons: First, slow long-distance running seems to be an anatomically natural activity for us, with our species' two relatively long legs. Second, running appears to be an especially effective way to derive specific therapeutic benefits from an aerobic activity. And, of course, running has recently become very popular. ”

“ An equal number could be expected from both Allandale and Belleville, so that with others who would feel disposed to, at least, be in at the start, though calculating to fall out after a few miles had been run, possibly a full score would toe the string at the time the great Marathon was called.
In an event of this nature a big "field" adds to the excitement of the occasion; and it is often noticed that those who have no intention of finishing usually look the most confident during the preparations for making the grand start. ”

“ Five miles, ten, and the pace began to tell. Some had dropped out altogether and others were staggering. The sheep were being separated from the goats. The real runners were ranging up in front, watching each other like hawks, intent on seizing any advantage. Most of them by this time had found their second wind and settled into their stride. Some were running on a schedule and paid no attention to their competitors, serenely confident that in the long run their plan would carry them through.
But Bert had no use for schedules. ”

“ Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon. ”

“ The downfall had acted on the other runners like an electric shock. Thornton and the Irishman were two hundred feet in front, while the [46] Indian and he of the winged-foot, running neck and neck, had opened up a gap of five hundred feet.
Had it been earlier in the race he would still have had a chance. But now with only a mile and a half to go, the accident threatened to be fatal to his hopes. The others had gained new life from this unexpected stroke of luck, and it was certain that they would not easily let go their advantage. To win now would be almost a miracle. ”