The Marathon Got Its Odd Length So Royal Children Could See the Start

When the 1908 London Olympics opened, the marathon distance was not yet fixed. The 1896 Athens marathon had run roughly forty kilometres. The 1900 Paris and 1904 St Louis editions both used different routes. London's organising committee chose what looked like a reasonable round number: twenty-six miles, from the grounds of Windsor Castle to the new White City Stadium.

Then the requests started arriving. Queen Alexandra, the Princess of Wales, asked that the start be moved so the royal children could watch the runners set off from the East Lawn nursery window. The committee obliged, pushing the start line about 700 yards further from the stadium. At the finish, the stadium organisers wanted the line directly in front of the royal box. That added another stretch on the final lap.

The arithmetic on the day came out to twenty-six miles and 385 yards — 26.2 miles, or 42.195 kilometres. The Italian runner Dorando Pietri famously crossed it first, half-collapsed and helped over the line, and was disqualified for accepting assistance.

The distance might have stayed a one-off. But by 1921 the International Amateur Athletic Federation, looking for a standard for the increasingly competitive marathon circuit, picked the 1908 London course length. By then several large marathons — including Boston, run since 1897 — had been settling into roughly that range.

No runner since has had a strong reason to thank Queen Alexandra. Every marathon training plan in the world is built around an arbitrary 385 yards added to a Windsor lawn so two royal children could watch the start.