The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of 42.195 km, 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.
Road running is the sport of running on a measured course over an established road. This differs from track and field on a regular track and cross country running over natural terrain.
Paraplegia, or paraparesis, is an impairment in motor or sensory function of the lower extremities. The word comes from Ionic Greek (παραπληγίη) "half-stricken". It is usually caused by spinal cord injury or a congenital condition that affects the neural (brain) elements of the spinal canal. The area of the spinal canal that is affected in paraplegia is either the thoracic, lumbar, or sacral regions. If four limbs are affected by paralysis, tetraplegia or quadriplegia is the correct term. If only one limb is affected, the correct term is monoplegia. Spastic paraplegia is a form of paraplegia defined by spasticity of the affected muscles, rather than flaccid paralysis.
Sir Ludwig Guttmann was a German-British neurologist who established the Stoke Mandeville Games, the sporting event for people with disabilities (PWD) that evolved in England into the Paralympic Games. A Jewish doctor who fled Nazi Germany just before the start of the Second World War, Guttmann was a founding father of organized physical activities for people with disabilities.
City2Surf is a popular road running event held annually in Sydney covering a 14-kilometre (8.7 mi) course. The event is a "fun run" as well as a race, attracting both competitive runners and community participants who can choose to run or to walk. The event attracts more than 80,000 entrants who start in staggered groups based on previous running times and early entry.
WheelPower is the national organisation for wheelchair sports in the United Kingdom, and aims to help people with disabilities improve their quality of life.
Michael Gerard Utley is an American former professional football player who was a guard for the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Washington State Cougars, earning first-team All-American honors in 1988. Utley was selected in the third round of the 1989 NFL Draft. He played for Detroit from 1989 until 1991, when he was paralyzed during a game.
Rochelle "Shelly" Woods is an elite British Paralympic athlete from the suburb of Layton in Blackpool, Lancashire. Woods is a T54 athlete who competes as a wheelchair racer in medium and long-distance events. She has competed in two Paralympic Games, Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012, where she won three medals. She is also a world-class marathon athlete, winning the women's elite wheelchair race at the 2007 and 2012 London Marathon.
Travis Matthew Roy was an American college ice hockey player, author and philanthropist.
The Peachtree Road Race is an American 10-kilometer run held annually in Atlanta. After being held on Independence Day from 1970 to 2019, the race was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic after originally being set for Thanksgiving. It is the world's largest 10k race, a title it has held since the late 1970s. The race has become a citywide tradition in which over 70,000 amateur and professional runners try to register for one of the limited 60,000 spots. The event also includes a wheelchair race, which precedes the footrace. In recent years, the race also has a special division for soldiers stationed in the Middle East. The race attracts some of the world's elite 10K runners and has served as both the United States' men's and women's 10K championship.
The Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation (SSPF) is a charitable organization founded in 2000 and headquartered in Pennington, New Jersey. It has since been renamed Conquer Paralysis Now.
The Amway River Bank Run is an annual road running race hosted by Amway in U.S. city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the month of May. The 25K run was created and first held in 1978 by Old Kent Bank as the Old Kent River Bank Run and continued under that name until 2000, when its name was changed to the Fifth Third River Bank Run. The name of the race changed again in late 2018 when Amway agreed to take over primary sponsorship of the race from Fifth Third Bank.
The Grand Shaftesbury Run, previously known as the Great Shaftesbury Run, is an off-road, rural half marathon and 10k course that takes place on the 2,200 hectares historic Shaftesbury Estate in Wimborne St Giles, Dorset, England. Both courses start and finish in the park at St Giles House, the historic home of the Earls of Shaftesbury. The inaugural event, held on 12 June 2011, opened the family estate to the public for the first time in 60 years.
Claire Lomas is a British campaigner, fundraiser, motivational speaker and former event rider. She became a paraplegic as a result of a riding accident in 2007. In 2012, she finished the 32nd Virgin London Marathon in 17 days using the ReWalk robotic suit.
Alastair Smales was born on 8 May 1962, in Australia. He lost the use of his legs in 1992 becoming a paraplegic after a four-wheel drive he was fixing slipped off a jack and fell on him. Due to this injury, Smales is now classified a S6 wheelchair grade in swimming competitions.
The Color Run is an event series and five kilometer paint race, inspired by the Hindu festival of Holi, that is owned and operated by The Color Run LLC, a for-profit company. It takes place in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, New Zealand, Australia, Africa, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The untimed event has no winners or prizes, but runners are showered with colored powder, made of food-grade corn starch, at stations along the run.
Dariusz "Darek" Fidyka is a Polish firefighter and recovering paraplegic who became the first person in history to verifiably recover sensory and motor function after the complete severing of his spinal cord.
Wheelchair sport classification is a system designed to allow fair competition between people of different disabilities, and minimize the impact of a person's specific disability on the outcome of a competition. Wheelchair sports is associated with spinal cord injuries, and includes a number of different types of disabilities including paraplegia, quadriplegia, muscular dystrophy, post-polio syndrome and spina bifida. The disability must meet minimal body function impairment requirements. Wheelchair sport and sport for people with spinal cord injuries is often based on the location of lesions on the spinal cord and their association with physical disability and functionality.
