The marathon has certainly developed from humble beginnings and is going into a new era as the world's current top 10 000m track athletes are stepping up to the distance.

We experienced the 'Golden Years' of the marathon for men during the 80`s when the legendary Carlos Lopes as well as Alberto Salazar stepped up to the distance.

We believe women's marathoning is again going into their period of the 'Golden Years' with the 2Hr 20 barrier being broken and then reduced to sub 2Hr 19min in a space of one week. [ 2001 ]

Then 2002, saw Paula Radcliffe emerge onto the marathon scene in a blaze of glory. Firstly, running the 2nd fastest time in history at London 2002 and then setting an outstanding record at Chicago in October 2002 of 2:17:18.

2003 update, saw Paula Radcliffe reduce the marathon to 2:15:25 at London | more |

For women the eighties saw the introduction of the marathon to the Olympic Games, and for a period thereafter Joan Benoit, Ingrid Kristiansen and Rosa Mota took the event to new heights. Unfortunately, at that time the great Grete Waitz's career began to go into decline in comparison. Waitz still continued to win events, however her times were no longer comparable with the other athletes times.

View our point scoring system for clarity on our rankings and prepare yourself for the introduction of our 'athletes of the marathon'.

Athletes of the marathon will document the greats who have covered the distance from the record holders to the great personalities. The 'barrier breakers' and the world record breakers, the athletes who never 'quite' made it but who added to the sport with their gutsy performances and added to the 'lure' of the event.

This topic will be continually developed and you the browser may make suggestions to who you think should join our 'hall of fame' or the 'greats of the marathon'. We will put them through their paces once again to see how they score as well as how they measure against the other greats of the distance.

Time-to-Run , has designed its very own 'points scoring' system to decide on the ranking of the athletes. In order to be nominated for the "Hall of Fame" the athlete will need to score a minimum of 100 points, thereafter they will have to pass the next test to see whether they fall into the category to be listed as well as to see their ranking in the 'the best marathon athletes'.

It must be noted as well that from the 60` through to the mid 80`s that the Fukuoka in Japan was the world's premier event, other than the Olympics, so for scoring purposes an athlete will receive 10 points for winning during those years. Boston during those years was considered a lesser marathon and it was only in 1986, due to great pressure, that they changed there incentive scheme towards the top athletes.