The origin of RACING
The temporal origin of the race is located in prehistory,
when men needed to move quickly to hunt or flee from their predators.
Historically, the most famous of the races would have been the one that gave
rise to the race we know today as a marathon: in the year 490 BC a man would
have had the task of taking to Athens the news that the Greeks had won the
Persians in the battle of Marathon . For that he would have run 35 kilometers
and, on breaking the news, would have fallen to the ground, already dead. Of
course, this is just a legend and that there is no historical evidence that
this actually happened, but the fact is that this legend boosted the entry of
the marathon race in the first edition of the modern Olympic Games, in 1896.
Currently, race events are divided into speed and endurance
events. The speed tests are those of “explosion”, that is, a short distance is
covered in a very short period of time possible. The endurance events are
characterized by being medium and long distance, so that the athletes' physical
resistance is tested. The speed tests are those in which athletes must cover up
to 400 meters; those with medium depth have a trajectory between 800 and 1500
meters; and the bottom runs from 3,000 meters to the marathon (42,195 meters),
reaching its limit in the ultramarathon (100,000 meters race).
In the 1980s, Kenneth Cooper's ideas about a slow race
spread, which became known as cooper. Many people adhered to this practice, but
the thought that all people should travel the same distance, regardless of
their physical condition, was soon outdated.