Athens Classic Marathon

So we did it :-)  Our day began by waking up early, getting ready and making our way down to Syntagma square to catch a bus to the ancient city of Marathon.  I have to mention that while making our way down to the square - the club was still bumping and people were crawling into cabs, at 6am.  It was hilarious.

Once we were there we started to relax a little bit and get ready for the race.  There were many, many more people than we both expect with a myriad of nationalities - Russian, American, Canadian, French, Greek (obviously), Polish, German, Mexican, Japan and other Asian countries, UK, Albanian, Armenian, Denmark, Finland, Sweden etc.  The announcer - who did the announcements in Greek and English - said there was a total of about 11,000 runners.  Getting ready over by a track we got to see a lot.  I saw Vaseline go many many places on the human body.  We also saw a lot 0f interesting characters.  At the start, I was most impressed by a man who was wearing a polo shirt, khaki shorts, and a jacket tied around his waist.  Then I was even more impressed to see him later that day in Athens with his metal - congrats.  We also saw an Asian man in a full suit - dress shoes included.  Tyler thought that it was a cool way to show up to the race buuuut he actually ran in that attire.  I got passed by a man pushing a stroller - like always.  Tyler saw a fully dressed Batman, mask and cape - legit.  An adorable older Greek man at the start.  I tried to photo bomb one of his pictures so hopefully that worked.  Two things were obviously international - the over whelming body odor and the copious amount of shoulder and back hair.  Also several stray dogs joined the festivities and ran in the race for a while.

So this course is the "original" course.  It is said to be a very challenging marathon course.  The whole race there were buses and buses filled with people who dropped out.  We both had very different races but agreed that we were amazed by how organized it all was.  From the super nice swag to the unbelievably punctual start time to the most impressive race support I've ever seen at a race.  It seemed that there was barely a moment where there wasn't locals or visitors clapping for you and shouting your name and handing you olive branch.  It was amazing.

Tyler was very successful.  He decided before the race to switch to kilometers which the race was measured in.  That way instead of 26.2 miles it was 42.19 kilometers making it more manageable for him.  He had very few issues, some cramps along the 10km continuous uphill but managed it.  He really enjoyed the bananas they offered along the course.

I had an alright race statically speaking but an awesome race mentally.  I knew the huge uphill was going to be challenge and my goal was to just keep going for as long as I could with my plan (run 5 mintues, walk 30 seconds).  I made it to about 16 miles until I had to start walking a lot more.  I was getting head aches and was very concerned about just finishing that I took it easy.  I like to say that I got my monies worth :-) Not a personal best for either of us (mine 5:08, Tyler 4:11) but a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I brought my camera along so I got a few photos along the course.

Afterwards we hobbled home, showered, changed, and ventured to the good ol' James Joyce - a favorite from last time.  We enjoyed a post-race meal of burgers and beer.  Honestly though, we were so exhausted it didn't matter what we ate.

Once we got back we crashed and napped but woke up with enough time to Skype the pooch again and take a picture of the awesome medals we got earned.  :-)

Today we leave for Meteroa - a monastery to the north of Athens that I hear is quite magical.  We'll be staying overnight there and coming back Tuesday evening.