Marathons - what is an adventure narrative?

It seems like most of the horizontal adventures we've read require what the title of this novel is: endurance. A long distance journey, across the countryside, facing adversity (whether it is lack of food, dealing with other people, or physical and mental exhaustion, etc.)  Today was the day of the 2014 Boston Marathon, one of the most high-profile running events in the United States, and I couldn't help but compare this race to the narratives we've talked about in class. From personal experience, long distance running is exhausting. While I haven't run the distance of a marathon, I've found that a race that's half that distance is grueling and takes a toll on your body, both physically and mentally.  Like the expeditions that we've read in books, a marathon requires that you prepare and train, that you face hardship, and it is written down into a readable format.

Here's a news article about today's race: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/us/boston-marathon.html?_r=0.  Like Endurance, it is written by an outside source who wasn't actually participating.  While this author took less creative liberties, I believe this still could be considered an adventure narrative, because it contains many of the qualities of the books that we've discussed in class.