i don't believe in half marathons.

half marathons make it almost impossible for races between 10 and 26.2 miles to exist.  rare are the 12, 14, 15, 16 etc. mile races.  that's not to say there aren't any out there.  there are.  and i know of a great 18 offhand, but my question is this- should we really ever make it a goal to finish just half... of... anything?  half a bachelor's degree really is useless to just about anyone.  should we eat only half cooked chicken?  or only pay half the monthly mortgage?  who's to say...

my point is, when Pheidippides made his fateful 25 mile dash from marathon to athens, if he had only gotten half that far before expiring, let's be real- the marathon would not exist in the first place.  his mission would have been a complete failure, and all he'd be is some nameless uncelebrated dead guy.  in short, marathons would not exist.  i'm sure there would be some other long distance running competition held instead, making 26.2 miles a completely arbitrary and unremarkable distance altogether.  but there's not.  Pheidippides came through, and we commemorate this event by slogging ourselves a somewhat unreasonable distance, and declaring personal victory.  yay, look at my medal, Zzzzz...

another problem half marathons pose is confusion of what the actual race entails.  this is a frequent conversation i have:
"So why are you so tired?"
"I just had a long run this morning."
"Oh?  How far did you run?"
"Eighteen miles."
"Woah- are you crazy or something."
"No, just training for a marathon."
"A marathon...?  Like the whole marathon?"
"There really is only one kind of marathon..."
"No, they have like, the half, too."
"Every marathon is 26.2 miles.  if i was training for half of that, i would have told you i was training for a HALF marathon.  You can't run half of a marathon and then call it a marathon.  because it isn't."

I don't understand why runners are forever having to explain this distance.  i was under the impression that this was an elementary world history lesson, and not an obscure piece of trivia.  either way, insulting as it may seem, i find the half marathon to be a pointless distance of little merit.  it shouldn't be associated with the word marathon.  and i say we throw in some 12 or 15 mile races in the mix...  why limit ourselves to only doing half of anything?  run the WHOLE 12 or 15 miles... or run the WHOLE marathon.  it sounds silly to say "I ran the whole half marathon."  because you really just ran only half of an actual race.