A long long time ago in the Ancient World, there was a sports event in the Olympics called the Marathon.
Athletes have to run a distance of exactly 42 kilolor in order to reach the destination and win a prize. The fastest runners win the best prizes.
The marathon is a popular event, but it costs money to organize it. So one day the organizers thought of a way to make money and keep it going. They will charge spectators money to watch it from the roadsides. In return they promise a better prize for the top runners.
Every year they make more and more money. But soon there is limited space for all the runners to start on the same line. Worse, there is no more space for spectators to squeeze into the the 42 kilolor route.
The organizers want more money, so they need more spectators and more runners.
How to solve this?
Turns out that the unit "Lor" was not universally agreed upon. So every year, the organizers quietly increase the length of the Lor until "42 kilolor" is a bit longer. Now more spectators can squeeze in and more money comes in.
The contestants realize that the marathon feels a little tougher every year, but the change wasn't much and everyone soon go used to it. Older runners retired and the younger runners had no idea that 42 kilolor used to be much shorter.
In time the marathon was increased to about 70 kilolor long. Many contestants simply collapsed of sheer exhaustion long before the finish line. To increase the excitement, horse chariots kept the pace from behind.
The slower runners were simply rolled over by the chariots.
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