Three marathons next weekend - 62k runners shining shoes and getting ready to run!

Image source: Flickr user wonggawei
2009 New York City Marathon Men’s Lead Group motoring thru LIC

We love the marathon. We think it is one of the greatest, purest sporting events that there is. One of our team members was one of the 27k people who ran yesterday in Boston. He finished in 2:56, a personal record. Before all hell broke loose.

From Wikipedia:

The marathon is a long-distance running event with an official distance of 42.195 kilometres (26 miles and 385 yards) that is usually run as a road race. The event was instituted in commemoration of the fabled run of the Greek soldier Pheidippides, a messenger from the Battle of Marathon to Athens.

The marathon was one of the original modern Olympic events in 1896, though the distance did not become standardized until 1921. More than 500 marathons are held throughout the world each year, with the vast majority of competitors being recreational athletes.

To give you an idea of how popular running is there will be three marathons next weekend with a combined 62k runners — and we’re looking forward to all runners (that don’t run out of gas..) safely completing them: Salt Lake City Marathon (10k runners) on Saturday, London Marathon (37k runners) on Sunday and Hamburg Marathon (15k runners) also on Sunday.

Salt Lake City Marathon set to proceed Saturday [The Salt Lake Tribune]
London Marathon will go ahead as planned, sports minister says [The Guardian]
Officials Urge Tight Security for London Marathon After Boston Bombs [NY Times]