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It may have been built in 1996 -- ancient history by Internet standards -- but www.100th.com, a site established to commemorate the centennial of the Boston Marathon, is still a fascinating stop. The site traces the history of the marathon decade by decade, with antique photographs and loads of trivia. For instance: Tommy Longboat, an Onondaga tribesman, gained his early lead in the 1907 marathon by outsprinting a freight train in Framingham. And Rosie Ruiz was not the first person to try to claim a victory after traveling the race course on wheels; the Golden Age of Cheating seems to have been the first two decades of this century. (Check out the "Villains" section under "People & Stories" to get the full scoop. Those were the days!)
Best way to get virtual athlete's foot
Even if you're not a history buff, you'll find it hard to resist the site's most innovative feature: a virtual-reality tour of the marathon course, which lets you "stroll" all the way from Hopkinton to Boston from the perspective of a runner, pausing at each tenth-of-a-mile checkpoint. It's a little eerie to see the streets of our city through a computer's eye, but the step-by-step commentary will give you a much better feel for what a real-life marathoner goes through. (At mile 22.8 in Brookline, as runners approach Washington Square: "Try to keep your head together. You will be feeling delirious and will experience the painful realization that you still have more than three miles to go.") Best of all, if you have Quicktime and a high-speed connection, you can download a movie that will send you hurtling down the entire virtually rendered marathon route in 30 seconds flat. You'll never have to worry about training season again.