Pheidippides purported run from Marathon to Athens (and his untimely demise) is one of the original urban myths. If you re-read Histories you'll find that Pheidippides was nowhere near Marathon at the time. "Dip", as they used to call him, was a professional messenger and was on his regular 145 mile (one way) Athens to Sparta route at the time. "Dip" was sent to Sparta to request help since the Athenians were badly outnumbered by the invading Persian army. The Spartans, being bad-assed-muthuhs, replied "let's rumble", as they always do, but were right in the middle of another bacchanalia. Bacchanals were the Spartan equivalent to tailgating. Being a little hung over from drinking fermented grapes, they warned that they'd be a little late to the battle.
The Athenians couldn't wait, and even though badly outnumbered, they still opened up an urn of whoop-ass on the Persian Army. That's the way it happened. http://vvv.it.kth.se/docs/early_net/ch-2-1.1.html http://www.coolrunning.co.nz/articles/2002a007.html http://lilt.ilstu.edu/drjclassics/lectures/history/PersianWars/persianwars.s htm
