Where earlier marathons had taken place in protective parks and on quiet, rural roads, the marathon is now seen to fit perfectly with the energy, drive, and ambition of our bustling city centers.
Some famous early marathon runners were Indian, and the first American to win the Olympic 10,000-meter championship was Billy Mills, a Sioux.
But Steven Munatones, a former marathon swimmer and swimming official who has served on Nyad's earlier crews, said he had no doubts.
In a welcome contrast from a week earlier, beautiful marathon weather greeted the 47,107 entrants running the New York City Marathon: temperatures in the low 40s and the course bathed in lovely sunshine.
The wave system has helped clear up some of the congestion, but it is still a mass race that has lost some of the intimacy – and some of the fun, as far as you and some others are concerned – that was a feature of the earlier New York City Marathons.
When it came to drama, intrigue and occasional comedy, there was little to beat the early Olympic marathons.
Other early birds include marathon trainers sprinting in for their caffeine fix in a mad dash to beat the 10.30am breakfast cutoff.
Eight months earlier, at the marathon trials in New York City, he had also failed to make the team.
"People in Louisville like to eat," she said, adding that she needed the calories, having run a half marathon earlier that day.
But that donation looks petty compared to the tremendous thing the group could have done simply by cancelling the marathon earlier in the week and diverting the supplies for the race to those in need.
