Running
The history of running - from the Stone Age to the present day
Walking is innate to humans. Even our ancestors did it - when hunting and gathering. Today it is mainly used for health and sporting competition.
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01
Running in the Stone Age - an instrument of hunting
The history of running is as old as man himself. Even our ancestors relied on running to ensure their survival. The first evidence of this is provided by cave paintings from the Stone Age, which show men hunting.
Fun fact: Experts believe that Bushmen from the Kalahari used precursors of today's spikes to move better and faster in sandy soil. This is suggested by finds of bast sandals with thorn spikes and leather sandals with beak-shaped spikes on them.
02
Walking in antiquity - a multitool for rulers
In the approximately 2,000 years up to antiquity, running was professionalised from a mere means of obtaining food to a multi-tool for rulers. Pharaohs in Egypt had surveyors walk the borders of their empire. Alexander the Great began to use pedometers to map the conquered territories on his campaigns. The Greeks had professional runners deliver messages of all kinds and thus probably launched the first messenger service.
Christian Schiester auf den Spuren der Botenläufer im alten Ägypten...
© Harald Tauderer/Red Bull Content Pool
The most famous messenger runner of this time to date is Pheidippides, also known as Diomedon. According to legend, in 490 BC he ran around 40 kilometres from Marathon - where the Greeks had surprisingly won a battle against the overpowering Persians - to Athens to announce the victory. Immediately afterwards, he collapsed from exertion and died. This run by Pheidippides is regarded as the historical basis for today's marathon distance of 42.195 kilometres.
The first known athletic races also took place in Greece. Initially as combat training, later also as part of the Olympic Games of antiquity. There were soon three running competitions: the stadium race over 190 m, the cross-country race over 1,500 m and the arms race in full armour over around 2,000 m.
03
Running in the Middle Ages - for God's sake!
People also ran in the Middle Ages: On pilgrimages, crusades and messenger runs. However, running lost much of its prestige between the 6th and 15th centuries. This was because the church and Christians rejected all physical activity as an end in itself - including sporting competitions.
04
Running in modern times - around the world on foot
From the late 16th century, running experienced a rebirth. The cradle of modern running: England. The starting shot was fired with the six-day runs (on the seventh day, Sunday, you had to rest), which became increasingly popular with the nobility from the 17th century onwards. At the same time, pedestrianism developed as a counter-movement to the aristocratic means of transport such as carriages, horses and bicycles, with its followers relying solely on travelling on their own two legs.
From the 18th century onwards, long-distance runs became increasingly popular, some of which were remunerated and on which bets were always placed. The most famous German pedestrian from this period is Fritz Käpernick. In 1881, he won the prestigious 600 km race from Berlin to Vienna, which he completed in three days and 20 hours.
05
1896: Spyridon Louis brings running into the modern era
The heyday of running began in 1896. With the modern Olympic Games, running competitions become more important internationally and the running distances that are common today become increasingly popular - from the 100 metre sprint race to the marathon, which was initially 38 km, 40.2 km from 1900 and, from 1908, exactly 42.195 km due to a request from the English royal family, who wanted to see the start from the window of their palace.
The first official modern Olympic champion over the marathon distance was the Greek Spyridon Louis, a shepherd and soldier, who ran the 42 km in 2:58:50 h on 10 April 1896.
06
Running today: from Prefontaine to Kipchoge
With the increased attention and increasing specialisation of individual running competitions, individual, particularly successful runners came more and more into focus over the next few decades, gaining influence and helping to make their sport more popular at the same time. One of the first real stars of running was the American long-distance runner Steve Prefontaine, who celebrated great success in the 1970s.
"When I think of Steve Prefontaine, I visualise a guy who just did his thing and ran however he felt like it," enthuses ultrarunner Flo Neuschwander about his first running idol. "He always ran at full throttle and with all his heart. I found that impressive. He was a real trailblazer, even outside of running." Tragically, Prefontaine died in a car accident in 1975 at the age of 24.
Prefontaine and his coach at the time, Bill Bowerman, were also instrumental in taking running from the tartan track to the streets by helping to turn the sport into a lifestyle. Bowerman brought the idea back with him from a visit to New Zealand, where Arthur Lydiard opened the world's first jogging club in 1962. Back in the USA, Bowermann pushed running as a popular sport, founded the sports brand Nike and produced the first modern running shoes for the masses.
Florian Neuschwander at the Wings for Life World Run in Munich.
© Marcel Lämmerhirt dla Wings for Life World Run
My biggest idol in the early 90s was Haile Gebrselassie.
Thanks to figureheads like Steve Prefontaine, it was no longer just ambitious track and field athletes who wanted to run in the 1970s and 80s. The running movement also caught on in Germany and the rest of the world. Running is in. On and off the tartan tracks of international competitions.
"The more World Championships and Olympic Games I watched, the more idols I came across," recalls Neuschwander. A new member of the running club at the time, he was passionate about running: "My biggest idol at the beginning of the 90s was Haile Gebrselassie. He was the first superstar long-distance runner. He was also the first to run the marathon in under 2:04 hours, in comparatively rudimentary shoes!" Neuschwander laughs: "He was really cool. There are now a lot of really good runners, but Haile used to be pretty much alone at the top. I ran my first record, the Saarland record, completely in a Haile outfit, 10,000 metres on the track."
Running diversified and professionalised rapidly into the 2020s. In addition to the Olympic running disciplines, there are now races for everyone, marathons, cross-country races, OCRs and charity runs in almost every city. Running has become a global phenomenon - the Wings for Life World Run is the best example of this.
"I realise how much the standard has increased over the years from my old times," laughs Neuschwander: "I once ran the half marathon in 66 minutes and was German runner-up! Today, the guys run that easily as a training run. The performance density has increased dramatically." The reason for this is scientifically optimised training methods and technologies. "Even ambitious recreational athletes now do double threshold training based on the Norwegian model, measure lactate, have carbohydrate storage patches on their arms and run in carbon fibre shoes," says Neuschwander. Nothing is left to chance - especially not at the top level.
Flo Neuschwander
© Phil Pham/Red Bull Content Pool
"Haile was the first Kipchoge."
Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge runs the Berlin Marathon in September 2022 in a world record time of 2:01:09 hours. As part of the Ineos 1:59 Challenge, a laboratory race in Vienna, he was the first person to run this distance in under two hours in 2019! "What's happening now doesn't catch me personally as much as the guys back then," explains Neuschwander. "Of course it's impressive what Eliud Kipchoge has achieved in the marathon, or what his tragically recently deceased compatriot Kelvin Kiptum did in his younger years, but few stand out for me like Haile did back then."
Overall, the history of running shows the incredible capacity of the human body and the determination of athletes to push their limits. Runners like Steve Prefontain, Haile Gebrselassie, Kelvin Kiptum and Eliud Kipchoge have contributed with their achievements to making running what it is today - a fascinating and inspiring sport for everyone.
