The Long Run: Steve Prefontaine, Frank Shorter, Joan Benoit, Grete Waitz, and the Decade That Made the Marathon Cool

The dramatic story behind the running and marathon boom of the 1970s and early 1980s, featuring the stories of Steve Prefontaine, Frank Shorter, Joan Benoit, Grete Waitz, and many others, about how a generation of runners turned the marathon 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 one-dollar entry fee, and only one woman competed. Fifty-four years later, nearly fifty thousand runners from al...