The Long Run
Steve Prefontaine, Frank Shorter, Joan Benoit, Grete Waitz, and the Decade That Made the Marathon Cool
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected 14 Apr 2026
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- 11,99 €
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- Pre-Order
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- 11,99 €
Publisher Description
A dramatic narrative telling the story behind the running and marathon boom of the 1970s and early 1980s, featuring the stories of Steve Prefontaine, Frank Shorter, Joan Benoit Samuelson, Grete Waitz, and many others, and how a generation of runners turned a formerly obscure distance into a national obsession
On September 3, 1970, the New York City Marathon was run for the first time. One hundred twenty-seven runners paid a $1 entry fee. The race was won by a Long Island firefighter who came to the starting line straight from his overnight shift. Only one woman competed. All but one runner was a New York resident.
Fifty-four years later, nearly fifty thousand runners finished the same race. Nearly half were women. More than three times as many runners applied, and over two million spectators watched. Today, runners from all over the world run the NYC Marathon, and many others like it. Marathons are inclusive, fully global, and still exploding in popularity.
How did we get from there to here? As Martin Dugard, long-time runner, running coach, and #1 New York Times bestselling author explains, it was thanks to four very special runners who changed the way America, and the world, saw running. The Long Run will celebrate these athletes—Frank Shorter, Steve Prefontaine, Joan Benoit Samuelson, and Grete Waitz—and many more, sharing stories of the specific races and social movements that transformed running from a niche sport to a national obsession. It is a story with big characters, enormous moments, and a historical arc that has never been completely explored. The Long Run will reveal how the sport of running, and the race, that we all know and love became iconic--and how “finishing a marathon” became a top bucket-list goal for runners and non-runners alike.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dugard, a runner and coauthor with Bill O'Reilly of the Killing series, recounts the 1970s marathon boom in this detailed history. He traces the marathon's origins back to the Greek legend of Pheidippides, a long-distance messenger who in 490 BC supposedly ran 25 miles from the battlefield of Marathon to announce the Greek victory over Persia, and notes that this story inspired the inaugural Olympic marathon in 1896. The U.S. saw a surge of interest in running in the 1970s, spurred by several factors, including President John F. Kennedy's fitness campaigns and new research extolling running's health benefits. Then, at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, American Frank Shorter won the first marathon broadcast live on television in the U.S. Steve Prefontaine also rose to stardom around the same time, setting nine American running records in 1974. Women protested and broke rules to achieve equal treatment in marathons, Dugard explains, highlighting the success of female runners like Grete Waitz, who won nine New York City Marathons, and Joan Benoit, who won the first women's marathon at the 1984 Olympics. Dugard dedicates about a third of the narrative to the years leading up to the 1970s and spends less time on the decade's lasting impact, giving the account an unbalanced feel. Still, he offers affecting stories of the sport's brightest stars. Runners will be delighted.
