The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of 42.195 kilometres, usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There are also wheelchair divisions. More than 800 marathons are held throughout the world each year, with the vast majority of competitors being recreational athletes, as larger marathons can have tens of thousands of participants.
The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon race hosted by several cities and towns in greater Boston in eastern Massachusetts, United States. It is traditionally held on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897, the event was inspired by the success of the first marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics. The Boston Marathon is the world's oldest annual marathon and ranks as one of the world's best-known road racing events. It is one of six World Marathon Majors. Its course runs from Hopkinton in southern Middlesex County to Copley Square in Boston.
Thomas John Hicks was an American track and field athlete. He won the marathon at the Olympic Games in 1904.
William John Sherring was a Canadian athlete of English and Irish descent, winner of the marathon race at the 1906 Intercalated Games.
William Henry Rodgers is an American runner, Olympian, and former record holder in the marathon. Rodgers is best known for his four victories in both the Boston Marathon, including three straight from 1978 to 1980, and the New York City Marathon, between 1976 and 1980.
Ronald MacDonald was a Canadian runner and winner of the second Boston Marathon in 1898.
Ellison Myers Brown, widely known as Tarzan Brown, a direct descendant of the last acknowledged royal family of the Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island, was a two-time winner of the Boston Marathon in 1936 (2:33:40) and 1939 (2:28:51) and 1936 U.S. Olympian. He ran the marathon in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin and also qualified for the 1940 Summer Olympics, but these were ultimately canceled due to the outbreak of World War II.
Richard Grant was a Canadian track and field athlete who competed at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, France for the United States. He also competed in the first four Boston Marathons, one of only two athletes to have done so.
Kathrine Virginia Switzer is an American marathon runner, author, and television commentator.
Harry James Smith was an American long-distance runner. He was most notable for competing in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. He was also the father of Hart wrestling family matriarch Helen Hart and the father-in-law of Stu Hart.
Roberta Louise "Bobbi" Gibb is the first woman to have run the entire Boston Marathon (1966). She is recognized by the Boston Athletic Association as the pre-sanctioned era women's winner in 1966, 1967, and 1968. At the Boston Marathon, the pre-sanctioned era comprised the years from 1966 through 1971, when women, who under AAU rules could not compete in the Men's Division, ran and finished the race. In 1996 the B.A.A. retroactively recognized as champions the women who finished first in the Pioneer Women's Division Marathon for the years 1966–1971.
Robert Arthur "Bob" Fowler was a Newfoundland-born long-distance runner who was recognized by the International Association of Athletics Federations as having set a world's best in the marathon on January 1, 1909 with a time of 2:52:45.4 at the Empire City Marathon in Yonkers, New York.
Samuel Alexander Mellor, Jr. was an American long-distance runner who won the 1902 Boston Marathon and competed in the marathon at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri.
John J. McDermott was an Irish-American athlete, born in Manhattan, New York City to James McDermott and Lizzie Grady. He won the first marathon run in the United States in 1896, as well as the inaugural Boston Marathon, then known as the B.A.A. Road Race, in 1897. He was a lithographer by trade.
Garry Brian Bjorklund is an American middle- and long-distance runner. He represented the United States in the 1976 Summer Olympics in the 10,000 meters. As a high schooler, he set a Minnesota state record for the mile run which lasted 39 years. At the University of Minnesota, he won the 1971 national championship in the six-mile run, and won numerous conference championships in various disciplines. Following his 1976 Summer Olympics appearance, Bjorklund became a marathon runner, and set a national age group record in 1980.
John Charles Lordan was an American long-distance runner who won the 1903 Boston Marathon and competed in the marathon at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri.
Lawrence Joseph "Larry" Brignolia, sometimes Brignoli, was an American long-distance runner and sculler of Italian descent. He won the 1899 Boston Marathon. A 161-pound blacksmith, he is the heaviest person ever to claim victory in the event. He is also the only person to have finished all of the first three Boston Marathons, and one of two runners who participated in all of the first four marathons.
John Duncan "Jock" Semple was a Scottish-American runner, physical therapist, trainer, and sports official. In 1967, he attained worldwide notoriety as a race official for the Boston Marathon, when he physically assaulted and attempted to tear off the bib number from 20 year old marathon runner Kathrine Switzer. Switzer was officially entered in the race in accordance with the Boston Marathon's rule book which at that time made no mention of sex, despite Semple saying that amateur rules banned women racing for more than a mile and a half. He subsequently oversaw implementation of qualifying times in 1970 and, in response to lobbying and rule changes by the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), the implementation of a separate women's race in 1972.
Thomas Patrick "Tom" Morrissey was an American long-distance runner who won the Boston Marathon in 1908.
