How Far Is A Marathon?

The term marathon is typically given to a long-distance running event which is a total of 42.195 km (that is 26 mile 385 yards or precisely 26.21875 miles).

Initially, there was no fixed length of a marathon as the only important point to note was that every athlete ran on the same course.

The name "marathon" has its roots in the legend of Greek soldier Pheidippides. According to legend, he set off from Marathon, a town of to Athens in order to make known that the Persians were miraculously conquered in the Battle of Marathon. He is said to have run that whole length with no stops in between and just moments after declaring his message, he collapsed dead tired. There are a number of other variations and related stories.