Polytechnic Marathon the event, and the Polytechnic Marathon was born. The first Polytechnic Marathon was held on 8 May 1909. Henry Barrett won, followed by Fred Lord, and Harry Green. As with the Olympic race, the start was at Windsor Castle and the course was 26 miles, 385 yards; this distance was adopted as the international standard for marathons in 1924. (The older Boston Marathon, founded in 1897, adopted the distance in 1924, but was slightly short for the first three years and was shorter still from 1951 to 1956.) Over the years, the route of the Poly Marathon varied. From 1909
Slow marathon Mihret Kebede created the project as part of a residency with Deveron Arts (now Deveron Projects). The artist had wanted to walk the 5850 miles from Ethiopia to Scotland, but this was not possible because of physical difficulties such as crossing deserts as well as closed borders and visa restrictions. Kebede calculated that if 225 people each walked 26 miles together they would have travelled the distance between Ethiopia and Scotland; in response she developed an accumulative marathon, which involved a 26-mile walk in and around the town of Huntly, and a parallel walk in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The inaugural