It was pouring down rain for the couple hours before the race, which was pretty miserable to be waiting in, not to mention it meant running the whole thing with wet, soggy feet. There was a light rain through maybe half of the race, but by the end the sun started shining. My perception of the race is significantly more pleasant a week removed from it, but at the time I recall it not being very fun. But it did feel really neat to be a part of it, and the whole time I was running I kept trying to motivate myself by saying "Kathryn, you are in GREECE, running the ORIGINAL marathon course, this is a once in a lifetime experience so you better keep your ass MOVING and try and make the most of it!" The route was actually not was pretty as you'd think, aside from some mountains...but let's be honest, mountains get really old after 26 miles. The course was also a lot hillier than I expected...I could have sworn I looked at the elevation map and saw that the highest grade was 2%...completely false...~km 12 to 31 were filled with hills and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were at a 20% incline. I pretty much went into the race with no idea of what to expect after all my shin problems and the fact that the longest I'd run was 12 miles a whopping 7 weeks prior. I really had no idea how my body would handle it, but I sort of had a finish time of 5 hours in my head as a goal. Not surprisingly I had to do some walking and my final time was 5 hours, 21 minutes, and 50 seconds...so not too far off. Surprisingly my shins didn't hurt at all. However, around the 12 km mark I started having some pain where the top of my hamstring connects with my butt muscle, and by the 25 km mark it was pretty bad to the point that I was mostly walking with spurts of a retarded one-legged running. So the middle part of my race (also coinciding with all the hills) consisted of quite a bit of walking. Towards the end of the race I started feeling quite a bit better and was able to get back into a more normal running pace, not sure what pumped me up...I suppose just the adrenaline of running into Athens and knowing it wasn't almost over. I actually did enjoy running the last 11 km, slightly downhill (I was SO excited once the hills were over) into Athens. The race finish was really neat - getting to run into the Panathinaiko Stadium, the white marble stadium built in 329 BC which held the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896 as well as the 2004 Olympics. Of course afterwards I felt like shit and my legs were completely dead. But after lots of water, gatorade, food, a hot shower, and a nap, I felt pretty okay. I was pretty sore for the next 2 days, but I had expected that. My time/pace results:
Kyle and Eleanor (both from UT) and Alex (a fellow KTH exchange student from Australia) also ran it and they did awesome! Their times were approximately 4:03, 4:31, and 4:06, respectively. It was Kyle's 2nd marathon and El and Alex's first marathons. It was really cool to experience it with friends and I ran with them for the first 8 or so km.
Other than the marathon, Athens was pretty cool. Athens itself is pretty huge, crowded, and dirty (actually reminded me a bit of Mexico), but it was a nice change of scenery from Stockholm. The area our hostel was in was pretty happenin', and I even got to see some prostitutes and people shooting up heroine in the middle of street. But of course it was really fascinating to see landmarks like the Parthenon that are so old; it completely blows my mind trying to comprehend all the time and history that have passed and it really puts your teeny-tiney life into perspective. The 2.5 days before the race we did some sight-seeing (Acropolis, etc.), but tried to limit our walking the day before in order to rest our legs. Then we spent the day after the marathon relaxing at the beach...it was the perfect last day for the trip and such a treat to be soaking up sun and warm weather (~75degF) before going back to cold and dark Stockholm. Oh yeah, and I love Greek food, although I already knew that!
Headed to Russia on Thursday...can't wait! In the meantime, I'll be trying to catch up/get ahead with school work.
Check out my Athens pictures here!
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