In a marathon 90 of runners managed to complete it.

There were 270*100/30 = 900 total finishers. 90% completed the marathon, so 900*100/90 = 1000 began the marathon. 1,000 runners total.

The whale was a missile blasting from beneath the surface.  2.) a majestic whale leapt skyward before diving back into the sea.    these are both figurative language. this is so because the whale in sentence "1" was not actually a missile, nor was it actually blasting. now, for sentence "2", a whale can not actually "leap".