In 490 BC the Athenians defeated the Persians at Marathon. After the defeat, the Persians retreated to their ships and sailed on to Athens, hoping to catch them unprepared for a sea attack. Pheidippides ran the 22 miles to alert the Athenians, then dropped dead.

The story is a conflation of two factual events and didn't actually happen, but if a story can be judged by its impact, it was a very important story. 2500 years later (give or take), the British were trying to work out the marathon course for the London Olympics. For several pragmatic reasons, they fixed the race at 26 miles, plus two laps around the track at the stadium.

On November 30, 2008 I decided to try half that distance.

My original plan was to walk 10 miles and run 3 (the "half-marathon walk" group). But at the last minute my trainer decided to go with me and with her pushing me, I ran 10 miles and walked 3. As we passed people who were part of the tail end of the "half-marathon run" group she observed: "those people came to run, and they are walking. You came to walk and are running past them!" I was sore for three days and probably pushed myself further than was wise or safe, but the feeling of accomplishment more than made up for it.

I ended up at 2hrs, 43min, which put me at 14th in my group and 1st in my group+division (1/2 marathon walk, males 35-40)! I even beat several hundred people who signed up for the 1/2 marathon run!

It was a great way to cap my year of competitive athletics and has me excited to get out of my "just happy to finish" phase and start working on improving my times.

First I have to get my knee to stop hurting...