1. Spartathlon
Credit: Ser13gio
The Spartathlon is a gruelling 153 mile ultramarathon race, held in annually in Greece. The race has been held in Greece since 1983, and starts at Athens and ends in Sparta.
The goal of the Spartathlon is to retrace the footsteps of Pheidippides, an Athenian messenger sent to Sparta in 490 BC to seek help against the Persians. According to an account by Greek historian Herodotus in The Persian Wars, Pheidippides arrived in Sparta the day after he departed.
The race was first done by John Foden and four RAF officers, to see if it was possible to do the journey Pheidippides did. Three out of the five of them completed it.
There are 75 checkpoints along the route, each with their own cut-off time for completion. Organisers may pull out people who don't meet the checkpoint marks in time, or people who display extreme fatigue.
