In the week before a marathon I need something to make me think uplifting thoughts. I don't want to forget about running, but neither do I want to be reminded of its grosser physical aspects. Two things come to my rescue:
The Winning Endeavours project, a collaboration between Archives for London, London Metropolitan Archives and the British Library, which shows images of the 1908 and 1948 London Olympics, and more besides, incuding archive pictures of the London marathon. I'm sure I'd run faster if those elegant Edwardian ladies were cheering me on.
The second is the latest in the Marathon 2500 lecture series, to mark the 2,500th anniversary of the battle of Marathon, in which Thomas Scanlon of University of California, Riverside, will discuss War and Sports
From the website: 'Both sport and battle were "contests" for the Greeks, agones, in their terms. We will here look at the fascinating and puzzling legend(s) of Pheidippides (or whatever his name was), ancient long-distance messenger runners ("day runners" hemerodromoi) as a class, ancient footraces in the stadium, perhaps a bit about the Olympic truce (on the theme of sport and war), the Marathon Race in the modern Olympics, and modern long-distance running.' You can either join in the webcast live, or listen to the archived version after the event.
