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The story is way more insane, the Greek messenger, Pheidippides, did two runs, a round trip from Athens to Sparta and back, like 480km through mountains in two days, then (during the battle of Marathon) his final run from Marathon to Athens (40km), the one he is famous for, saying "Nike! " meaning Greek "we won!" before collapsing and dying.
480km through mountains in two days
Lol, my man was running 10 kilometers per hour for 48 hours straight?
Like with anything in Ancient Greek history, the numbers they quote are typically meaningless. The amount of exaggeration or straight up lying they did back then would make kim jong il blush.
I'm sure they're lying but running an average of 10 kilometers per hour over 48 hours isn't insane
Usain Bolt's top speed is 44 kilometers per hour. Maybe the dude wasn't that fast or running top speed the whole time but his job was running a lot I'm sure he was fast as fuck.
So maybe it averaged out and it was only exaggerated a little bit?
They have ultra marathons where you run for 24 hours straight, and this guy would have smoked the current record holder going over rough terrain.
People in general are more athletic nowadays, but our top athletes are basically inhuman compared to athletes from 75 years ago, let alone 2000 years.
It's most likely a straight up lie, or exaggerated by several multitudes. Ancient "historians" are pretty famous for exaggerating things to make things look more heroic.
For example Herodotus claimed Xerxes led an invasion force of over 5 million people, in reality it was more like 100k-300k. This was well known even as far back as the Roman, who called Herodotus both the father of history and the father of lies.
I mean yeah it's definitely a lie I'm not saying it isn't.
But I do think it's not that insane of a lie. I mean for one apparently the guy died and for two genetic freak factor.
It's insane, and science agrees. Read up on Functional Threshold Pace (FTP), which is what would be a factor in runs like this. The sheer amount of fueling (food+water) required to keep pace going would be insanely impossible for 480km, unaided, without stops. And I mean all caps INSANE.
10km per hour over 48 hours is absolutely insane, and the comparison with Bolt's 100m world record doesn't make any sense.
The ultramarathon world record holders today might do it : the closest existing event is the Spartathlon, a one-way Athens-Sparta race, for which the records are around 20h. Which leaves 8h of sleep before you have to do the world record run a second time...
Another decent comparison is the 48h ultramarathon. Matthieu Bonne broke the world record at 485km in 48h in 2025, the previous one being 475km.
But Matthieu Bonne is running on a flat rubber track. And both examples have modern shoes, nutrition and a support team following them.
So we are supposing our guy is world record material, even though he is selected from a population of 30k male Athenian citizen at the time. We are supposing he is running the world record twice, back to back, in sandals and without anyone to help him on the way. And/or we are supposing he is running as fast as a guy doing it on flat rubber.
It's not quite impossible (or only slightly exaggerated) but it sure as hell is absolutely insane.
Definitely insane but I don't think it's that insane. There are definitely far more embellishments that are unbelievable than that.
I do also think we should account for straight genetic freaks. They lived back then too. I doubt this guy was one but I'd bet the fastest person that ever lived has a higher likelihood of being lost to history than competing professionally today
To be fair, I don't think the most gifted genetic freak in history running bare foot or in sandals would beat today's elite with access to modern training science, nutrition and equipment. That stuff makes a huge difference.
To be fair the guy died after doing it. Even if you don't have a sport team, I guess it's possible if you push yourself to your absolute limits ?
I remember a similar argument about how it was impossible for the Egyptians to have built the pyramids. It comes down to ‘I don’t understand how it could be done, so it’s impossible’
I mean - there's not a lot of engineering mysteries involved in this. He ran. That's the story. If he actually had a team of horses staged along the route or something that's a different story.
He also fought in a battle immediately after the run. Then ran some more. Then died.
You don't think someone could run themselves to death? Humans are capable of miraculous things.
That's not so bad. I can do that easy after eating 12 steaks for breakfast with my cyclops buddy.
My brother in Christ yes the poets exaggerate but we can map the distance from cities with lasers in space so we know how far he ran. The question is how fast.
Right, but I'm not disputing the distance between cities. That's not the subjective information in this claim. I am disputing if he actually ran a full round trip, just from one to the other, or even just part of that. We could also ask how long it took, or if he even ran it at all.
When ancient sources claim unbelievable things, it is fairly reasonable to just not believe them.
All right, but it isn't exactly unbelievable that someone ran for 2 days then keeled over dead, from exhaustion.
I think how it's depicted is pretty suspicious. If a modern politician like Trump claimed something like that would you believe him?
"Pheidippides was a tremendous runner, really the greatest messenger in the history of messengers. When the Persians (very bad people) were attacking, the generals went to him and said, "We need a runner." He didn't complain. He ran, he fought, he ran again.
He ran all the way to Athens to deliver the good news. He sprinted the whole way, arrived, and shouted, "We won!" (truly a beautiful message). And because he gave it his absolute all, he was totally drained and he tragically collapsed and died. Very sad, but a perfect ending for a hero. Nobody ran better than Pheidippides."
Is that very believable to you? Or does it ring of nationalistic propaganda?
It's a story that went through millennia, I think a bit of inaccuracy is valid. I mean, I only need a few beers to embellish my stories.
Also didn’t they have horses?
The Greeks weren’t really noted for their horsemanship and a man can outrun a horse anyway.
However having fresh horses at properly spaced outposts like the Romans used are far superior.
480 km in two days in the mountains
Sure ya did Pheidippides. Sure ya did.
Uphill, both ways. Sure, grandpa.
There are crazy people who do that shit. There's a few 500 mille races out there that people complete in under a week.
There's also the World Marathon Challenge, and the Great World Race.
7 marathons, 7 continents, 7 days.
But… they won… what was the big rush on his way back? Like if he was trying to outpace an incoming invasion, THAT I could understand. Was he in that much of a hurry to get the party started?
The initial story that was told just involved the run to Sparta in a single day prior to the battle to ask for assistance. After the Athenians won the battle, they marched the 40km to Athens in full armor in order to arrive before the retreating Persians could launch a naval attack on the city itself. Later, these two stories got combined into the popular legend that's described in this post.
So yeah, the rush was that they were trying to outpace an incoming invasion. They won the battle, but the war was still on. Their rush back to Athens allowed them to stop a direct assault on the city, which led the Persians to retreat entirely.
He wasn't even delivering some critical information or orders or anything. He died delivering news of the victory. I like his enthusiasm, but they could have waited a day. That's the kind of initiative that gets rewarded with more work. Or death, apparently.
He did actually, even after losing whomever the greeks were fighting (Persians?), they send some boats up river to Athens, presumably to tell the city they won and extort whatever they could. So it was important that the Athenians knew the battle was won before the boats arrived.
Source: an ancient history podcast I listened to like two years ago. (So I am vague of the details)
Maybe in the story, the following narrators left out that he said, "I nearly died" around the bar table and didn't actually die.
This is why every real marathon ends in spitting on a grave and saying "That's how it's done, bitch."
I sub-2hr marathon is more impressive than you think.
You know how they say it's a marathon, not a sprint? Well, it turns out if you sprint long enough you complete a marathon; most people can't sprint for 2 hours, tho.
If you sprint faster, it doesn't have to be 2 hours worth of sprinting. 😌
I haven’t seen the video but I read somewhere that they basically had to invent a new type of carbohydrate gel that could absorb calories into the runner’s stomach faster than any food ever had before, in order to make the time possible. Some scientist was working on this project for years. It’s crazy!
Pffff. He didn't die after just 26 miles.
Dude ran from Athena to Sparti, then back. That's not down the road.
Only one person said he did the short 42.2km from Marathon to Athena after his 480km round trip via mountains to the Spartans, but everyone at the time, including modern day historians, doubt it.
We recognise the ultra-race format and Spartathlon, but Marathon is not a Greek truth.
including modern day historians, doubt it.
Gasp... The ancient Greek exaggerating numbers......they would never do such a thing. How could a people lacking such moral fortitude fight off 3 million Persians?
Are you declining the names of the city states or using an uninflected spelling that’s more historical (or that you just prefer)?
If you’re declining, would it not be from Athenaikós to Spartaikí or are proper nouns handled differently?
Marathons should be ran in bronze made armor!
Why? Story goes that the guy was actually naked (or arrived naked).
I like that attitude.
I'd be dead after running 26 miles, but even dead I'd start a fight.
So if I ran 25 miles and died, can there be a MidzisedSedan-athon held in my honor?