The Spartathlon, or running in the footsteps of Pheidippides
There is a scene that often recurs in accounts of the Spartathlon. After 246 kilometers of Greek roads, sleepless nights, and mountain passes crossed in the dark, the runner finally arrives in Sparta. There, at the foot of the statue of King Leonidas, a child steps forward and hands them an olive branch. The gesture is simple, archaic, almost unreal. And yet.
A wager on history
It all starts with Herodotus. In his Histories, the Greek historian recounts that before the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, the Athenians sent a messenger named Pheidippides to ask Sparta for help against the Persians. Pheidippides reportedly covered some 1,140 stades—or 246 kilometers—in a day and a half. Modern historians long read this passage as a heroic metaphor. Until an officer from the Royal Air Force decided to take it literally.
In 1982, Wing Commander John Foden and four colleagues landed in Greece with a simple and slightly crazy idea: to recreate Pheidippides' run to see if it was humanly possible. Three of them reached Sparta. Foden in 37 hours and 37 minutes. John Scholtens in 34 hours and 30 minutes. John McCarthy in 39 hours. The proof was made. The following year, the first official Spartathlon set off from the Parthenon in Athens.
Six marathons. One full night. Zero compromises.
The Spartathlon covers 246 kilometers between Athens and Sparta, the equivalent of six consecutive marathons. The time limit is 36 hours. Along the road, 75 checkpoints line the course—each with its own time cut-off. Missing a checkpoint means immediate elimination. The pass at Mount Parthenion, at an altitude of 1,200 meters, is usually crossed at night, in the cold, with legs already worn out by 100 kilometers of asphalt.
About 400 runners take the start each September. Barely 35 to 40% of them cross the finish line. The others stop—or collapse—somewhere between the suburbs of Athens and the olive groves of the Peloponnese.
Yiannis Kouros and the Greek excess
The story of the Spartathlon would be incomplete without Yiannis Kouros. The Greek runner, born in 1956, won the race six times in the 1980s and set records that stood for decades. His way of running was as much about intuition as it was method: constant rhythm, economy of movement, and an ability to pass through walls of pain as if they did not exist. Kouros became the living symbol of what the Spartathlon tests: not speed, but depth.
In 2023, the Greek runner Fotis Zisimopoulos became the first to break the 20-hour barrier, completing the course in 19 hours, 55 minutes, and 02 seconds. A time that turns heads even among ultra-running insiders.
Why run so far?
Finishers of the Spartathlon are often asked this question. The answers are strangely similar in every language: to see how far we can go. Not to break a record. Not to finish first. To touch something that resists, that does not give in easily.
There is something in this race that transcends sport. The act of running in the footsteps of a man about whom we know almost nothing, except that he ran—and that it was enough to change the course of a battle, perhaps a civilization. The Spartathlon is based on a historical hypothesis. But every September, hundreds of runners set off from the Acropolis with the quiet conviction that this hypothesis is worth living from the inside.
That is perhaps the most accurate definition of a legendary race: an event that exists because someone, one day, refused to let history remain in books.
Photo: cover of Spiridon magazine, April 1985 - Zuckerstatter