The average sports-page reader knows that the fastest runners in a major marathon are likely to be Kenyan or Ethiopian. But another part of the Boston and London marathons is dominated by northern Europeans, plus Americans, Japanese, Australians and South Africans: the men’s and women’s wheelchair races.

An extraordinary test of an athlete’s shoulders, arms, wrists, and torso, along with huge demands on the cardiovascular system, wheelchair racing began at Boston in 1975 when one man, Bob Hall, persuaded the Boston Athletic Association to let him compete. The B.A.A. said Hall could have an official finisher’s medal if he could complete the course in under three hours. He finished in 2 hours, 58 minutes, and the game was on.

Fast forward – very fast forward – and the course records for wheelchairs at Boston are 1:15:33 for men and 1:28:17 for women. The holders of those records, Marcel Hug and Manuela Schar, both from the Swiss canton of Lucerne, represent the two main types of wheelchair athlete. Hug was born with spina bifida; Schar lost the use of her legs in a childhood accident.

Schar has won Boston four times and was favored to win this year but was beaten by Eden Rainbow-Cooper of Portsmouth, England, who surprised everyone including herself by taking the lead three miles into the race and holding it the rest of the way. As for Hug, trying to beat him is like trying to beat Tiger Woods at golf in 2001. Having won Boston six previous times, he blasted away from the field this year and tore nearly two minutes off his previous record for the course, beating runner-up Daniel Romanchuk from Champaign, Ill., by five minutes.

A conspicuous difference between running and wheelchair racing is that the wheelchair racers don’t need months to recover between major efforts. Hug, Schar, Rainbow-Cooper, Romanchuk, and other top Boston wheelchair finishers competed in London the following week. Hug won again, this time beating Romanchuk by only half a minute. Schar was second again, behind her Swiss compatriot Catherine Debrunner.

Rainbow-Cooper was sixth. Her slower performance may have been partly an inevitable letdown after her terrific effort the week before, but also possibly attributable to the fact that most people reach their greatest physical endurance in their late 30s. Hug is 38, Romanchuk is 35, Schar is 39, Rainbow-Cooper is 22.

Volunteers picked up cups, water bottles, orange peels and other debris left by runners along the Boston and London Marathon courses weeks ago. Meanwhile the staff of “On The Run” has been sweeping up assorted other details of these races, like the following.

Lindsay Smith, 36, of South Hadley, has run Boston eight or nine times – he claims to forget which – and this year was his best performance for the course, 2:39:46. That’s a very good time for hardcore runners. So where did Smith run in high school or college?

He didn’t. “I played soccer and tennis,” he explained recently, “so I’d been moving my body all my life. I got into running after college.” His inspiration came partly from studying at Boston Architectural College, which is on the marathon course.

Reaching halfway in any race can give runners a boost. At Boston it can also induce temporary deafness in a runner’s right ear, since the marathon midpoint is at Wellesley College, which is on the right-hand side of the marathon route. To be admitted to Wellesley, you have to be able to scream at 80 decibels for two hours, which you’ll do on Patriots Day while runners are passing.

Wellesley students also hold lots of signs. Leeds marathon veteran Bill Romito found his attention drawn by one reading, “Your dog is proud of you!”

“What about my cat?” said Bill, whereupon another spectator held up a sign reading, “Your cat could care less.”

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The 14th Annual Daffodil Run takes place Sunday in Amherst. Registration on the town common starts at 8:30 a.m. The 10K begins at 10 a.m., the 5K at 10:15. Runners get bagels, fruit, coffee and a pre-race Jazzercise warm-up. An all-comers party follows. Proceeds benefit Big Brothers Big Sisters.

With a wonderful long uphill in the first half and scenic dirt roads downhill in the second half, the 4.8-mile Lake Wyola Road Race in Shutesbury is a challenging and utterly delightful race. It’s on June 9, starting at 9:30 a.m. There are age group prizes, a separate start for walkers, with prizes for those walkers who are under 16, and a 1.6-mile fun run (https://racewire.com/register.php?id=14056).

John Stifler has taught writing and economics at UMass and has written extensively for running magazines and newspapers. He can be reached at jstifler@umass.edu