marathon race, long-distance foot race deriving its name from Marathon, Greece. According to legend, in 490 B.C., Pheidippides, a runner from Marathon, carried news of victory over the Persians to Athens. In the first modern Olympics of 1896, a commemorative event retraced his route. The race soon became an Olympic event, its distance standardized in 1908 at 26 mi, 385 yd (42.195 km). The popularity of running as part of a physical fitness boom in the 1970s engendered a proliferation of marathons, some of them televised. Races in Tokyo, New York City, and elsewhere joined the famed Boston Marathon (begun in 1897). Tens of thousands of runners entered these and less celebrated marathons seeking to achieve personal records and to test their endurance. One of the most influential male runners was Bill Rodgers, who won the Boston and New York City marathons four times each between 1975 and 1980. Until the 1970s, women were largely ignored in (or excluded from, as at Boston) marathon racing, but in 1984, American Joan Benoit won the first Olympic race for women, and Grete Waitz won the New York City marathon nine times in 1978-88. Confronting the limits of endurance, some athletes enter ultramarathons, races of 50 miles or more, or of periods like 24 hours. The current marathon record for men is 2:04:42, set by Morocco's Khalid Khannouchi (Chicago, 1999); for women it is 2:20:47, set by Kenya's Tegla Loroupe (Rotterdam, 1998).

marathon group therapy: see group psychotherapy.

Marathon, village and plain, ancient Greece, 20 mi (32 km) NE of Athens. Here the Athenians and Plataeans under Miltiades defeated a Persian army in 490 B.C. (see Persian Wars).

Long-distance footrace run on an open course of 26 miles 385 yards (42.2 km). First held at the revived Olympic Games in 1896, it commemorates the legendary feat of a Greek soldier who is said to have run from Marathon to Athens in 490 BC, a distance of about 25 mi (40 km), to report the Greek victory at the Battle of Marathon, after which he dropped dead. Marathons today are usually open events for both men and women, often run by thousands of participants, including the venerable Boston Marathon (established 1897). The women's marathon became an Olympic event in 1984.

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