Why the marathon is 26 miles and 385 yards
The massive 1908 Olympic report records its marathon as 26 miles (Mystery solved after 116 years: how the King helped prove marathon really is 26m 385yds, 23 July). Chris Brasher, the creator of the London marathon with John Disley, who was aware of my passion for arcane and usually irrelevant athletics history, once commissioned me to find the source of that extra 385 yards.
One of my explanations was that the 26 miles had been to the entrance of the stadium, with the extra length being the distance round the track to the royal box. But no, I don’t believe that either.
What I did find out was that Dorando Pietri had, in 1909, competed in a two-man indoor professional marathon, 19 laps to the mile, at the Albert Hall. He had failed to finish, beaten by the English runner Charlie Gardiner in two hours 37 minutes, which may well still be a British indoor record. The prize was £100.
Tom McNab
St Albans, Hertfordshire
• My training bible for my first marathon in 1989 was The Competitive Runner’s Handbook, first published in 1983. It tells us: “An English princess, so the story goes, wanted to watch the start of the [1908] race from her castle window and then view the finish from her seat at the [White City] stadium … That was about 2 miles longer than previous marathons … As you puff along those last few miles, all obscenities should be uttered to ‘Her Royal Highness’, whose vanity created the distance.”
Alan Shepherd
Penzance, Cornwall
• Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.
