The Spartathlon holds its technical briefing in Athens on Friday evening, the formal marker that race week has begun. Around 319 runners from more than 40 countries have completed registration for Saturday's start, when the race sets off at 07:00 from the foot of the Acropolis, near the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, for the 246km run to Sparta.
The course runs west along the Megara Gulf coast before crossing the Isthmus of Corinth, then climbs the 1,200-metre Sangas mountain pass on Mount Parthenion in darkness for most of the field, before descending toward Tegea and into a final 50km that is largely downhill to the finish. Seventy-five checkpoints mark the route, each with its own cut-off time, and runners who miss one are pulled from the race regardless of how they otherwise feel — a system Running Lookout's race preview described as doing most of the damage long before the overall 36-hour limit becomes relevant.
The race commemorates the run of Pheidippides, the Athenian messenger who, according to Herodotus, covered the distance between Athens and Sparta in a day and a half around 490 BC to request military help against a Persian invasion. Five officers from the Royal Air Force tested whether the feat was physically possible in 1982; the following year, the first official Spartathlon set off with 45 entrants from 12 nations. It has run most years since, growing into one of ultrarunning's recognised benchmark distances.
Late September in Greece typically means daytime heat through the race's opening hours, before temperatures fall sharply once the field reaches the mountain pass overnight — a swing that has historically caused as many drop-outs as the terrain itself. Finishers are received in Sparta at a statue of King Leonidas I, where local schoolgirls offer water and a laurel wreath, a ceremony largely unchanged since the race's founding.
The Spartathlon start coincides with one of the busiest weekends on the autumn ultrarunning calendar: the Bear 100 gets under way in Utah on the same Friday, and Sunday brings the BMW Berlin Marathon. Spartathlon's own results, given the 36-hour cut-off, will not be final until Sunday afternoon, by which point most of the weekend's other headline races will already be decided.