The sun poured down at Marathon. To the right of the winding road, on hills where goats nibbled the brown grass, the rocks made sharp black shadows. To the left, a warm, slow spray varied the edge of the Aegean. Pheidippides, running toward Athens 22 mi. away, headed down the dusty road.
When Pheidippides staggered up to the city gates, announced that the Persians had been defeated and fell dead of exhaustion, he was lucky. In a modern marathon race, he would have failed to reach the finish. The 193 runners who left Hopkinton,...
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