Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness

by Scott Jurek

The real story of Pheidippides, according to those same historians, is much better and has a happier ending. It also inspired the modern Spartathlon. The Persian fleet was on a roll. They had plundered their way through the Greek islands, sacked the city-state of Eretria, and then had their sights set on Athens. The Athenians sent a small force, commanded by General Miltiades, to seal off the exits from the Bay of Marathon, named after the ancient Greek word for the fennel that probably grew wild there. The ancient historian Herodotus writes that the Athenian generals dispatched Pheidippides to the great city of Sparta to ask for reinforcements in holding off the much larger invading force. Pheidippides reached Sparta the day after he left Athens, but his plea fell on deaf ears. Although sympathetic to their fellow Greeks’ plight, the religious Spartans were in the middle of a festival to Apollo and could not wage war until the full moon. It must have been a long 152.4 miles back home with the bad news, but luckily Pheidippides had something else to report. While running through the mountains above the ancient city of Tegea (checkpoint 60 of the modern Spartathlon), he had a vision of the nature god, Pan. The son of Hermes, the divine messenger, Pan ruled over shepherds, nymphs, and rustic places. He was a great guy to have on your side in a big battle, because he could induce a wild fear in mortals called “panic.” This god called Pheidippides by name “and bade him ask the...