I'll spare you the history of the Athens marathon (which every Athens marathon blog seems to always include) except to say that it starts in the town of Marathon, goes to Athens, someone died, and it is the original.
Ever since I got back to Barcelona after the Geneva marathon I've been looking forward to getting to Athens to do it all over again! Luckily, this time Lain and Emre came with me, which made for an enjoyable trip. We got to see a few sights in Athens over the five days that we were there, including the Acropolis, which was really impressive, and a bunch of other temples and ruins. Also, the food was pretty good! Lots of meat plates and decent pasta (especially the day or two before the race!).
A few days before the race we went to the expo and as we were walking around (buying running gear), we saw a Kenyan guy who was being followed by a camera crew. He took a shine to Emre and ended up holding him and ended up passing me his phone to take a picture of the two of them! A few days later that guy went on to win the marathon!
Emre got really into photography on this trip! He took quite a few pictures with our camera, including a few of Laleinia and I, so that was nice. Hope he treats the camera well as he gets more and more comfortable with it. I won't be happy if he breaks it!
Two days before the race we went to the Panathenaic Stadium (where the marathon ends) and each did a run inside. It was quite cool, an amazing all-marble stadium, and it was exciting to see exactly where I'd be crossing the finish line a couple of days later. There is also a small Olympic museum (or exhibition) there too, which was cool to see, with a bunch of the Olympic torches from many of the different Olympic games.
The day before the marathon we took it pretty easy. We went back to the expo to get some gels (and came out with much more), had lunch, and then walked by the sea for quite a bit. It was really pretty, the sea was very calm and I want to go back and jump in at some point. The colors as the sun was going down were amazing, really pretty! All in all, Athens is pretty cool but if we come back to Greece we will go to the islands or somewhere and play in the water instead of the city! We went back to the apartment early-ish, and Lain gave me a nice leg massage to get ready for the next day, and we were off to bed!
Race day began really early, five-something, as I headed to the train which took me to a bus which drove for an hour and arrived in Marathon. The bus drove along the route that I'd be running back on, and unfortunately it was quite an uninspiring, boring drive. There isn't much to see on the route, except a stretch which was burned this summer during forest fires which killed 99 people and devastated a few towns. Really sad. Amazingly, you don't even see any of the temples, etc., at the end in Athens, even though you are really close to them. I guess that is because they want to keep the original route and end in the stadium. One thing you could sense on the drive was how hilly the route was, basically one big hill that was around 20km long. Obviously it isn't steep but pretty relentless. After 32km the rest of the race is downhill, so I figured let's get through the first 32 and then race the last 10km. Boy was I wrong!
It wasn't really warm at the beginning while waiting to get going, so I sat on the floor inside a building where people were lining up for the bathroom. Anything to keep warm. Later on, the temperature got to around 25 celsius I think, so not chilly later on! I'm not into warming up too much for a long run so I figured I'd just save my energy and sit for as long as possible. Right before the race, I headed to my start group, stretched a little, and before I knew it we were off! I love crossing the start line, I get a little smile and think "here we go, all the training done for this!"
The first 32km of the race went quite well for me, maybe too well, because similar to Geneva, I slowed quite a bit towards the end. I dealt with the uphill quite well and got to the highest point feeling quite good. Only 10km to go, and I thought I was going to speed up. Well, after about 3km of the downhill I was tiring quickly. I walked a little and struggled to get going again, then repeated that a few times. I was still very confident of beating my Geneva time but was a little sad that I obviously was still not pacing well.
I got my second wind around 39km and realized that if I pushed, I could finish under 3:30. I started to really go for it, running very quickly for a little stretch when right before the 40km mark, I felt some kind of explosive pain in the little toe of my left foot! It was agony! I had to stop, move to the side of the road, sit down and take off my shoe and sock. I couldn't see anything, but it felt really bad whenever I took a step. I put my shoe back on, said a prayer that I'd manage the pain and finish the race, and got back to it. The pain dulled a bit, but I was hobbling pretty bad for about 1km before picking it up and running well through to the end.
Wow, what an ending! Finishing in the stadium was incredible, I don't know how that can be topped! Some really stereotypical Greek music was playing as I sprinted through the finish and looked around for Laleinia and Emre. I grabbed Emre and he came with me and collected my medal. He was very proud. It was great to have my family there at the finish and to take care of me while I lay down and chilled at the end. I brought a blow-up camping mattress - amazing idea - and chatted to Lain as Emre built a campfire / birds nest structure next to us.
I was really happy with my time, considering the tough course, of 3:33:17. Something to be proud of, but something that should be pretty easy to beat in Barcelona next year! I realised that since the Geneva marathon, I've only ran over 21km once, and that was only 24km. I've now planned many long runs leading up to Barcelona in March, and I think I'd like to be below 3:20, maybe 3:15.