NPR’s A Martinez talks to running coach Martin Dugard about his new book, “The Long Run,” which details the growth of major marathon races and the cultural shifts that made running popular.
A MARTÍNEZ, BYLINE: I am a runner. I started running back in the late part of the 20th century, also known as the 1990s. And these days, because of my ever-shifting work schedule, I either run at 11 p.m. or 3 a.m. But one way or another, I gots to get my miles in.
Our next guest wrote a book for fellow running nerds, aspiring runners or maybe for spectators of races like today’s 130th Boston Marathon, where around 30,000 participants will take to the streets. Martin Dugard is an author and running coach. His new book is “The Long Run.” And I started by asking him why people would voluntarily subject themselves to the pain of running 26.2 miles.
MARTIN DUGARD: I think we’re wired to do hard things. You know, that’s kind of…
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
DUGARD: Seriously, it’s kind of perverse. But, you know, the marathon has become one of the great bucket list items. I think people get something real out of pushing limits they didn’t know that they had. You know, most of modern life is kind of mediocre, kind of average.
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
DUGARD: And I think that – I think we like to rise above that mediocrity.
MARTÍNEZ: Tell us about the origins of the marathon, the long-term mythological history of it.
DUGARD: The common story that we’re told is that there was the Battle of Marathon between the Persians and the Greeks, and that a messenger – a warrior messenger, a guy who actually fought in the battle – was dispatched afterwards to tell the people of Athens that they had won. And the legend is that he ran 40 kilometers, about 25 miles, up the hill to Athens. And as he gets to the Acropolis, he shouts, nike, nike, which is victory, victory. And then he drops dead. His name was Pheidippides.
The truth is, there was a guy named Pheidippides. But the legend shows that he actually did run all the way to Sparta to try to enlist help and then he came all the way back. But historians, you know, from Herodotus all the way up until almost the third century, nobody mentions this guy by name. Nobody mentioned that he ran all the way to Athens. Nobody mentioned that he dropped dead. The British poet Robert Browning kind of introduced that myth in the late 19th century, and that’s the one we cling to today. But it’s such a lively take on, you know…
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
DUGARD: …That it inspired the first modern Olympics in 1896. And it inspired the organizers to hold the first-ever marathon. And, you know, they named it after the battle. And they followed the same course that Pheidippides would’ve followed. And it ignited a running boom. It was just one of the…
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
DUGARD: …First booms to running back in the late 19th century.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. So, OK, you mentioned how the distance from Athens to Marathon is around 25 miles. How is the marathon length, though, 26.2 miles? That’s the contemporary distance.
DUGARD: That’s another one of these myths, too, because if you go on AI and you say, why is the marathon 26.2 miles? It’ll say that the British family wanted the marathon in the 1908 London Olympics to end right before the royal box.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
DUGARD: And, in fact, the marathon always ends before the royal box, or used to, at least. It’s not the end that’s the reason. It’s the start. They moved the start back 1.2 miles, hoping that King Edward would come and be the official starter for the marathon.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, the marathon was part of the Olympics for a few Olympics in the early part of the 20th century. But when exactly did the marathon become less of just an Olympic sport and a sport that everyone could take part of?
DUGARD: If I had to put a number on it, I would say late 1950s, early 1960s. That’s when the Road Runners Club of America was found and you really had people going out there to contest races. But when you look at the modern runner, where it’s kind of cool and hip to be a runner, back then they were just a bunch of nerds.
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
DUGARD: And so, you know, the Boston Marathon was founded in 1897. And there were a few others that came along, but things really exploded in the 1970s. And I think with the New York City Marathon being founded in 1970, you know, 55 people finished out of 127 starters. You had people running in actual running shoes. So a lot of things began happening to make running just explode.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. And then you add to that the 1972 Olympics in Munich, when Frank Shorter wins the Olympic marathon – what? – first gold in that event for a U.S. runner since 1908. So you’re right, all of these things came together at the perfect time, it sounds like, to kind of make running into something that a lot of people could take part of. Tell us about that Olympics and Frank Shorter’s victory that was also part of that linchpin to get things going.
DUGARD: Yeah, I’ll tell you what, that victory – look, and I was – in 1972 I was 11 years old. I literally was so inspired by Frank Shorter winning that Munich marathon that I stepped out the door in my jeans and my Pro-Keds…
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
DUGARD: …And ran – spontaneously ran four miles. And I used to think that was just me, but now, from talking to people, it was a big deal. A lot of people…
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
DUGARD: …Kind of got that same motivation. But it was the first time the marathon was ever broadcast live in its entirety. And Shorter doesn’t just win, he wins in amazing fashion. It’s just this big, dramatic moment. What Shorter did that day didn’t just change the fact that people became runners, it changed how we ate, you know, the clothes we wear. Even to this day, when developers build a subdivision, they used to build, like, clubhouses so you could go play pool or watch TV. Now they put trails in so people can hike and run.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. It’s true, yeah.
DUGARD: So just that one marathon changed – like I said, a revolution that changed how we live our lives.
MARTÍNEZ: What was it about the marathon in the Olympics, or just in general, that didn’t include women, at least at first?
DUGARD: You know, there was a woman who tried to run that first marathon in 1896, and she even showed up at the starting line, and they wouldn’t let her do it. So she ended up running it on her own the next day because, you know, the female sex is clearly weaker than the men, so they were afraid she was going to hurt herself horribly. And when she did it, she even had the document notarized with her time on it that she had ran faster than a lot of the men.
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
DUGARD: You know, so flash forward, Grete Waitz, you know, showed up in 1978, and she beat almost all the men at the New York City Marathon. And that got people’s attention. Then she came back the next year and ran even faster. And even The New York Times had an op-ed piece that said, hey, it’s time to put the women’s marathon into the Olympic Games because Grete Waitz clearly shows that women can do anything that men can do.
MARTÍNEZ: How do you figure out a way that is best for you to start a running program to eventually run a marathon?
DUGARD: I think you make it very elemental. People who try to start by buying the most expensive shoes and buying the most expensive clothing and the most expensive watch, they lose some of the fundamental joy of being a runner, which is really just getting out there and finding a rhythm with your body, and finding a moment where you kind of commune with nature and the world and everything else just kind of shuts out. And all of a sudden you realize you’ve run 10 miles instead of maybe 2 miles just because you kind of built up to it. And you find that. And then you can start thinking about the fancy stuff.
MARTÍNEZ: Martin Dugard is the author of “The Long Run.” Martin, thanks a lot.
DUGARD: Thanks, A. Great to be on.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BORN TO RUN”)
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) Baby, we were born to run.
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