Slow Marathon was an annual event hosted by Deveron Projects that took place in the North East of Scotland with all routes ending in the Aberdeenshire town of Huntly.
[1] The artist had wanted to walk the 5850 miles from Ethiopia to Scotland, but this was not possible because of physical difficulties such as crossing deserts as well as closed borders and visa restrictions.
[citation needed] Slow Marathon 2013 took place on Saturday 20 April as part of John Muir Day weekend; it served as the official launch of the Walking Institute.
Speakers included Mike Daniels from the John Muir Trust, artists Penny Weir and Gill Russell and ornithologist, Roy Dennis.
The walk took participants along the route of the former railway line from the coastal town of Portsoy to Cairnie junction before following the River Deveron back into Huntly.
The next day a Pathmakers Gathering discussed long-distance walks and other pilgrimages with speakers including John Sparshatt, Christos Galanis, Marylin Lennon and Maureen Ross.
The route followed the course of the River Deveron and was inspired by a project led by artist Anne Murray and musician Jake Williams called With and Against the Flow.
The route, which started in the Coreen Hills, took in places of energy from ancient stone circles to modern electricity pylons and wind turbines.
The Slow Marathon 2019 took place on 21 April 2019, and walked the local poem 'The Ba'Hill, the Battlehill, the Clashmach and the Bin, they all form a circle and Hunty lies within'.
In May 2020 Deveron Projects announced that Slow Marathon could not take place as planned and instead called on people across the globe to come together and walk the world in an act of solidarity with communities suffering from the Covid-19 pandemic.