1908 Olympic Marathon
By Julien on Wednesday, March 16 2011, 22:16 - OFFs - Permalink
As you might know, it's during the Olympic Games of 1908 in London that the current 42.195km marathon length was set. After reading an excellent article by M. Polley [1], I've tried to map the course on Google Earth (also on GoogleMaps). It's not trivial to follow the original route in some places, and even completely impossible toward the end, where the White City Stadium has been replaced by the BBC Media Village a few decades ago...
On Sunday, Alessio and I decided to attempt the course casually. We took the train to Windsor and started running gently towards Eton. The only actual remaining feature mentioned by [1] is a milestone in Eton, that we unfortunately failed to notice...
Two runners at the start of the 1908 Olympic Marathon (Windsor Castle).
Nowadays, the route would definitely not be considered as runner-friendly, as pointed out by Fiennes. A long stretch of dual carriageway between Slough and Uxbridge is rather noisy. After a quick sandwich break in Ruislip we headed towards Harrow, where a commercial centre has been built in place of the original route path.
Overall, the route is not hilly, but not flat either! We could feel the gentle climbs towards the end. After Wembley Stadium, we crossed a major train line hub at Harlesden, from which it was impossible to follow the original route. We passed by Dorando Close, and finished on the "souvenir" line painted on the pavement of the BBC Media Village, in front of a table of Olympic Medallists. Nice run!
Re-enactment of the 1908 Marathon finish with a twist: what is Dorando hadn't been helped by the officals?
Ultra old marathon.
[1] Martin Polley, From Windsor Castle to White City: the 1908 Olympic marathon route. The London Journal, 34(2), pp 163-178, July 2009. [online].
Pictures courtesy of Alessio.
On Sunday, Alessio and I decided to attempt the course casually. We took the train to Windsor and started running gently towards Eton. The only actual remaining feature mentioned by [1] is a milestone in Eton, that we unfortunately failed to notice...
Two runners at the start of the 1908 Olympic Marathon (Windsor Castle).
Nowadays, the route would definitely not be considered as runner-friendly, as pointed out by Fiennes. A long stretch of dual carriageway between Slough and Uxbridge is rather noisy. After a quick sandwich break in Ruislip we headed towards Harrow, where a commercial centre has been built in place of the original route path.
Overall, the route is not hilly, but not flat either! We could feel the gentle climbs towards the end. After Wembley Stadium, we crossed a major train line hub at Harlesden, from which it was impossible to follow the original route. We passed by Dorando Close, and finished on the "souvenir" line painted on the pavement of the BBC Media Village, in front of a table of Olympic Medallists. Nice run!
Re-enactment of the 1908 Marathon finish with a twist: what is Dorando hadn't been helped by the officals?
Ultra old marathon.
[1] Martin Polley, From Windsor Castle to White City: the 1908 Olympic marathon route. The London Journal, 34(2), pp 163-178, July 2009. [online].
Pictures courtesy of Alessio.
Comments
Good for you guys, managing not only to map the old 1908 course, but then go on to run it as best you could! Obviously you couldn't use the proper start point, as that's in the private part of the grounds of Windsor Castle, and obviously you couldn't finish at the right place because the White City stadium is gone!
However, might I offer my version of the route (see http://stoneship.org.uk/~steve/mara...). This differs slightly from your published route. I used the Ordnance Survey's "Old Maps" server to examine the route as it was in 1908 and I think you slipped up slightly in a couple of places...
In Uxbridge, your route goes straight through some buildings, whereas it should have followed Windsor Street and have turned to the south side of the parish church.
In Harrow, your route crosses the railway and joins Sheepcote Road to the north of the railway. You should have stayed south of the railway on Kenton Road.
By Wormwood Scrubs your route stays west of the prison, but should have used the narrow lane between the prison and the hospital. You use Wulfstan Street, but that wasn't there in 1908.
I have made a careful stab at drawing an outline of the old stadium, and have drawn in the best approximation that I can manage for the 385 yards on the track. Notice that when they built Westway, the stadium was still there (I remember it being *very* close to the road). Notice how the westbound sliproad from the junction is shorter than the slip coming off the eastbound carriageway? That happened because the stadium was literally in the way! Dorando Close is the old access road to the stadium's entrances on the south-west side. The stadium can be seen in old photos not to encroach on the line of Wood Lane to the east. I reckon I've got it placed within a couple of metres of true.
Notice that by my reckoning, the commemorative "finishing line" outside the BBC buildings is totally in the wrong place!
Hope that it's of some interest to you.
Steve