[et_pb_section admin_label="section"]

[et_pb_row admin_label="row"]

[et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_text admin_label="Text"]Welcome to Interesting If True, the best podcast I make my wife listen to.

I'm your host this week, Shea, and of course my co-host, Aaron!

I'm Aaron, and this week I learned that the hardest part of going for a run isn’t the running, it’s putting down the Doritos… and getting dressed… and leaving the house… and running…

Few updates this week. We still need to record an episode of 4 More Beers, apologies on that but real-life happened, but don’t worry—we’re on it! It’s another two man production this week. Jenn is under the weather and Steve is on vacation for a bit. Jim may be around once life allows but he’s doing his best not to actually be Mr. Flaming Pants, send him your well wishes. While Shea and I love doing a buddy-show we’re going to try to fill the empty seats with some guests in the coming weeks. No spoilers now but it’ll be good. It’ll be good…

If you’ve enjoyed the show so far please do us a solid and leave a 5-star review wherever you listen!

Worlds Fail

The 2020 olympics were unfortunately moved to next year to keep athletes and spectators safe from the current pandemic, this shows great preparation and forsite from the officials and a compassion that definitely wasn't seen back in the 1904 Olympics, especially if we’re talking about the marathon.

The 1904 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the III Olympiad was celebrated in St. Louis, Missouri from July 1 to November 23 at what is now known as Francis Field on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis.

The city of Chicago had won the original bid to host the 1904 Summer Olympics, but the organizers of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis would not accept another international event in the same time frame.

The exposition organization began to plan for its own sports activities, informing the Chicago OCOG that its own international sports events intended to eclipse the Olympic Games unless they were moved to St. Louis. Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement, gave in and awarded the games to St. Louis.

So St. Louis wasn’t as prepared as we are nowadays and they were competing with the World fair at the same time. The Louisiana Purchase Exposition or world fair was celebrating the Louisiana purchase and as the Olympics were only a few years old many of the events were lost in the chaos of the city. The president of the world's fair actually declined to invite anyone to the opening ceremonies so on July 1st he did it himself in a humdrum “ceremony.”

The participants totaled 651 athletes - 645 men and 6 women representing 12 countries. However, only 42 events (less than half) actually included athletes who were not from the United States.

This is just a small peak at the craziness that came during the olympics that year but I want to focus on the main event! The first organized marathon was held in Athens at the 1896 Olympics, the start of the Games’ modern era. The ancient games, which took place in Greece from around 776 B.C. to A.D. 393, never included such long-distance races. The idea for the modern marathon was inspired by the legend of an ancient Greek messenger who raced from the site of Marathon to Athens, a distance of about 40 kilometers, or nearly 25 miles, with the news of an important Greek victory over an invading army of Persians in 490 B.C. After making his announcement, the exhausted messenger collapsed and died. To commemorate his dramatic run, the distance of the 1896 Olympic marathon was set at 40 kilometers or 24.85 miles.

Official course 1904 Marathon

If you take away anything from this story I hope it’...