Thon

1.  Today was the 25th consecutive Marine Corps Marathon that I have not run in, after several years in which I missed but one. Judging by the way I felt on this weekend's runs, the streak is likely to continue.
2. Recently, I heard of an "Edit-a-Thon", sponsored by the Royal Society, in which women were encouraged to edit Wikipedia entries concerning woman prominent in science and technical fields. The suffix or rather syllable "thon" has been floating loose for some time, I suppose since 1960s with "telethons" leading the way. Had I more time, perhaps I'd rent from Potomac Video the movies in which Rooney Mara has had a leading role (The Social Network, the Dragon Tattoo movies), and invite friends over for a "Mara-thon"
3. Late in Swann's Way, a rather stuffy general remarks to the Duchesse de Guermantes that Jena was a batttle before it was a bridge--she has been making a dismissive joke about some Napoleonic title (fictitious, I think). Likewise, Marathon was a battle before a marathon was a race. (Though one could consider the hoplites' forced march back towards the city as having the nature of a race.)
4. In Ancient Greek the word "marathon", according to Liddell and Scott, is the Attic version of "marathron", fennel, with which the field of the battle was overgrown.