It is the amazing feats of endurance and will that the marathon regularly evokes from elite endurance athletes that give it that unique, epic quality which is very appropriate, given its origins in ancient Greece.

In 490 BC, King Darius of Persia landed at the town of Marathon with an army of 20,000 men, intent upon conquering Greece. The Greeks were outnumbered and sent a request for help to the Spartans. The request was carried by a runner called Pheidippides, who covered the one hundred and forty five miles in two days.

The Greeks beat the Persians relatively easily - and an exhausted Pheidippides was given the task to run back to Athens to break the news. He only managed to get one word out to the king, 'Nenikhamen!' (rejoice, we conquer) before he dropped dead.

The rebirth of marathon running was initiated by a Frenchman, Michel Breal. A friend of the father of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, he argued that the inclusion of this historic event so deeply rooted in Greek history would add weight to the revival of the games in Athens in 1896.