In reality, if de Coubertin and Breal had wanted historical accuracy, they should have stuck with shorter races. The premier events of the ancient Olympics (which were held from 776 BCE to 267 CE, with a later brief revival from 361 to 393 CE) were the sprints: the stade (one stadium length, or about 192 meters), the diaulos (out and back, or about 384 meters), and the dolichos (a multilap event that varied from seven to 24 laps of the stadium, or anywhere from 1.3 to 4.6 kilometers). This is not to say that longer-distance running was unknown in ancient Greece. Even though there is no evidence of long-distance racing, we do know that hemerodromoi or professional “day runners” such as Pheidippides carried messages on a regular basis. And in addition to those for whom running was a job, there was one dolichos victor, Drymos of Argos (who won the event in 320 BCE), who apparently found 4.6K too short for his tastes and promptly ran the 80 miles back to his hometown to announce his victory—reportedly arriving on the same day.

A run to Ur and back

The origins of long-distance running actually extend much further back in history than ancient Greece. The first recorded account of ultrarunning is found in a hymn celebrating the Sumerian king Šulgi, who ruled from 2094 to 2047 BCE. After offering some preliminary praise of Šulgi’s road-improvement projects, the hymn recounts a run he made on some of those roads, from Nippur to Ur (a distance of about 96 miles) and back again.

I, the runner, arose in my strength, (and) in order to test my speed in running,
From Nippur to the brick-work of Ur
My heart prompted me to traverse

. . .

Like a dove, anxiously fleeing from a šibbu-snake, I swung my arms,
Like the Anzu-bird, when turning its eyes on the mountains, I ‘opened wide the knees’ . . .

His passage, like that of modern big-city marathoners, was cheered by the masses:

The (inhabitants of the) cities, which I had founded in the land, came out to meet me,
The black-headed (people), as numerous as ewes, gazed at me with admiration.

Arriving at Ur, Šulgi went to the temple and offered lavish sacrifices; he then rested, bathed, and feasted in his palace before beginning his return trip to Nippur. Unfortunately, it seems weather conditions had deteriorated dramatically, and by the time he started the return journey a vicious storm was raging:

On that day, the storm shrieked, the west wind whirled,
The north wind and the south wind howled at each other,
Lightning together with the ‘seven winds’ devoured everything in heaven,
The thundering storm made the earth quake,
Iškur roared in the broad heavens,
The clouds of heaven mingled with the waters of the earth,
Their small (hail-)stones (and) their large (hail-)stones
Were striking on my back.

The weather apparently did not deter Šulgi in the least. (“Like a fierce lion I charged furiously, Like a wild ass I galloped, With my heart full of joy, I ran onward.”) Clearly, distance runners in antiquity were just as hard core as they are today. Upon his arrival back in Nippur, he again headed to the temple:

My sag-ur-sag-priests gazed at me (with astonishment);
In Nippur and Ur, in one day, I celebrated their ešeš-festival!

Since the text appears to suggest that he made the almost-200-mile round trip in time to celebrate the ešeš festival in both cities in one day, and since the current 24-hour road record (set by Yiannis Kouros in 1998) is only a bit over 180 miles, it’s no wonder the priests gazed in astonishment!

A run for the Pharaoh only

But, as with the accounts of distance running in ancient Greece, the run of Šulgi was not a race. While the oldest known running races did occur in Sumer (“city races” that dated from circa 2035 BCE, or about a dozen years after the end of Šulgi’s reign), we know nothing of the distances of these events—merely that they occurred and, based on the fact that they were accompanied by sacrifices provided by the king, that they were important events in the life of the city.

In order to find the roots of distance racing in antiquity, we need to turn to Egypt. Like other ancient cultures, Egypt also had a history of shorter-distance runs, but unlike Greece and (probably) Sumer, where the shorter events were staged for competition, in Egypt these runs were undertaken exclusively by the Pharaoh. The role of the Pharaoh, who was considered to be a divine personage, was to maintain order in the world and to protect the lives of his subjects. These tasks, of course, demanded great physical strength, which Pharaoh was required to demonstrate periodically by participating in athletic events. Since, however, he was a divine personage, the idea of him competing against mere mortals (and possibly risking defeat!) was unthinkable, so these events were exhibitions rather than competitions. At the beginning of a Pharaoh’s reign, he (or rarely she—a block in the Temple of Karnak depicts Queen Hatshepsut, a female Pharaoh, in a running pose) would make a ritual run around the palace as a means of symbolically laying claim to the kingdom and proving his fitness for the role of king. At the 30th anniversary of his reign, and at three-year intervals thereafter, a jubilee festival would be celebrated to confirm that the Pharaoh was still fit to rule and to “magically” restore his strength; a similar ritual run was a centerpiece of these festivals. While the precise distance the Pharaoh ran is not known, the archaeological excavation of the pyramid complex of King Djoser suggests that it wasn’t very far.

But while the Pharaohs didn’t race against others themselves, we can thank one of them for providing us with an account of the first known competitive ultramarathon. In 1977, a monument was discovered on the desert road of Dahshur, which ran from the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis to the oasis of Fayum. The monument, known as the “Running Stela of Taharqa,” carries an inscription dating it to December 685 BCE, during the reign of Taharqa, a Pharaoh of the 25th dynasty. The stela, which identifies itself as the “running practice of the army of the Son of Re Taharqa,” tells of the king’s decree that his army was required to run daily (although it doesn’t, sadly, give a training schedule), insisting that “a faint heart does not exist in the midst of my army, nor a feeble officer of mine.”

Taharqa’s interest in promoting a swift and fit military is certainly understandable. The Assyrian Empire (the superpower of its day) had recently conquered much of neighboring Canaan (and had its eye on Egypt as well). The stela goes on to describe a race that was organized as part of a royal troop inspection. Not only did the Pharaoh observe the run, but he even joined in for part of it, “running with them on the back of the desert of Memphis,” which, in view of what we know about the Pharaohs’ refusal to compete with mortals, makes Taharqa’s participation in the race unprecedented and astonishing. The runners set off from Memphis in the very early morning to avoid the heat, leaving “in the hour of Sehetepnes” (the ninth hour of the night) and arriving at the Fayum oasis “in the hour of Weben” (the first hour of the day), covering the 50-kilometer distance in about four hours. They then rested for about two hours, and set off on the return trip to Memphis “in the hour of Meketnebes” (the third hour of the day). We are not told how long the second half of the run took, but Wolfgang Decker (in Sports and Games of Ancient Egypt) suggests that the increased heat and fatigue could have slowed the runners by as much as 25 percent and postulates about a five-hour return leg, or about nine hours total for the full 100K. At the finish in Memphis, the Pharaoh “awarded the winners and arranged for them to eat and drink with his bodyguards; he awarded also the losers and rewarded them with every thing, for his Majesty liked the struggle performed for him.” (The awards for the losers aren’t specified, but based on later developments in the sport, I’m betting on either finishers’ medals or belt buckles.)

A revival of Taharqa’s race

Sadly, there is no evidence that Taharqa’s race was ever repeated in ancient times. (After the discovery of the stela, though, interest in recreating the event led to the establishment of a 100K “Pharaonic Race,” now in its 14th year.) Nor was his goal—to create a superior military force—successful: in 671 BCE, Assyria invaded Egypt, and by 664 BCE Taharqa had been defeated. Still, it’s nice to know that although the ancient origins of the marathon are more fiction than fact, the ultramarathon does indeed have its roots in antiquity, and when we run “beyond,” we are following in the footsteps of kings.

For more information on the 100K Pharaonic Race: http://www.egyptianmarathon.com/EgyptianMarathon/

Resources

• Decker, W. 1992. Sports and Games of Ancient Egypt. Translated by Allen Guttmann. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Klein, J. 1981. Three Šulgi Hymns: Sumerian Royal Hymns Glorifying King Šulgi of Ur. Ramat-Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press.
• Lamont, D. A. 1995. “Running Phenomena in Ancient Sumer.” Journal of Sport History 22(3): 207-215.
• Moussa, A. M. 1981. “A Stela of Taharqa from the Desert Road at Dahshur.” MDAIK 37: 331-337.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, July 26-27, 2014—In the past year, I have run my fair share of races, all as part of a New Year’s resolution to start running again. At the start of 2014, it had been five years since my last race, four of which were spent wondering, When will I get back in gear? So as the New Year came roaring in like a freight train, I decided it was time to answer with a fierce set of goals.

It seems that most people take resolutions with a grain of salt, and there is a slight chuckle as friends tell stories of their resolutions lasting only a week or two into January (or of never even starting them). For years on end, I was in the same boat, only I kept my failures to myself because, somewhere deep inside, I was ashamed. For whatever reason, 2014 was the year that I realized this and told myself I had no option other than to run. So with ample persistence, I saw my goals through to the bittersweet end, culminating in a 20:16:50 finish at the Rio Del Lago 100-mile on November 8. This was my first hundred and the ultimate arrival of the new me. After 10 short months, I went from not running at all to being in the best shape of my life.

Days after my first 100-mile race, I was able to reflect on and pick out the highlights from the most successful reentry year I could have imagined. Rio Del Lago is an obvious standout, but I must say that everything about it was as you would expect: long, grueling, and packed with soaring highs and grinding lows. In short, my first hundred went as planned, so I will spare you the details. The one event, however, that stands out as different from any other run I have done is the one that forced me out of my comfort zone in not just a physical and mental way but a social one as well. This was the Worth the Hurt Ultramarathon—a double running of the San Francisco Marathon.

The way the Worth the Hurt works is that its participants show up a little before midnight on race day to run one full marathon through the streets of San Francisco (trekking a slight variation of the official course in reverse). This is done