Athens Marathon

Marathon number 24(.2) was a chance to support my boyfriend Sye as he took on his 3rd attempt over the distance. I had missed his second marathon in Paris earlier this year, and we nearly missed out on this one too due to some family circumstances, however we made it to Athens ready to run.

Sye had picked Athens marathon because it follows the authentic route of the legend from which the race was born. After the battle of Marathon in 490BC, a herald named Philippides/Pheidippides ran to Athens to declare the victory. When he arrived he shouted ‘Rejoice, we conquer!’… and then died. When the modern Olympic Games was established in 1896, they decided to hold a race in honour of this story, and from that we have the marathon! The Athens Marathon route runs from Marathon to Athens, just as Philippides and the first Olympic marathoners did.

We arrived in Athens two days before the race, plenty of time to do some sightseeing and um… indulge in some pre-race Greek alcohol. Not the best marathon prep! Luckily we gave ourselves a day to recover from the hangover and pick up our bibs from the expo at the Tae Kwon Do centre in the south of the city. The expo was huge, with a one-way walk system which meant that you had to go past every single stall to pick up your number and pre-ordered t-shirt. After a while it got a bit tiring, but I know Sye was getting more and more excited by being surrounded by all the activity.

To transport people to Marathon for the start of the race, busses leave at ~6am from a number of different locations around the city. Honestly I was expecting to wait for ages and people to be shoving onto the single bus that arrived - but we were met with brilliant organisation and everything about race morning went super smoothly. I fell asleep during the bus ride but I hear that it took us along the marathon course, giving runners a race preview in reverse. Unfortunately, it also highlighted how much uphill there would be…

Arriving in Marathon once again everything was very well organised - even if I still didn’t believe it. I really needed a bathroom, and was a bit shocked that there were none available straight away. Instead, we just saw all the DHL baggage vans, which held 500 runners bags each. Having been told the toilets were further down, we left our bags and accepted the bin-bags which were being handed out to keep warm.

A little way further along we came to the Marathon track - which was surrounded by the most port-a-loos I have ever seen in my life, ever! They lined the outside of the entire track, and ahhhhh 10000 points to Athens Marathon because I doubt any race will ever top that efficiency. Queues were not more than 5 people long at any time, which meant no stressing over whether we would miss the start or not. Race organisers, take note!

With 30mins to go we headed to our orange start pen, Pen 7. The sections are based on your fastest marathon time, which you submit on signing up, however the website also allowed you to nominate friend(s) who you wanted to start with. This is another brilliant idea which other races should implement. Just to the side of us was an eternal Olympic flame (very cool) and a long queue of people waiting to get a photo. They certainly weren’t going to make the start gun!

Our strategy for the race was as follows: start slow, get slower. Although he’d started off really well, Sye’s training had halted two months prior to the race, and never really picked up again. He knew he could get through halfway fine, but was already scared of the second half. That wasn’t helped by the fact that the Athens Marathon course climbs continuously until ~32km, before dropping back down into Athens. I hoped that if we could just make it to the top of the hill in decent shape, then gravity would carry us home.

The run itself started out fine. We got over the start line and immediately Sye gets a phone call from him mum. A few minutes later, his Dad tries. What timing! He ended up sending a sweaty selfie and saying ‘sorry, can’t talk - I’m running a marathon!’ 😂 When we reached the first kilometre, Sye stuck out his hand for a high-five. One down! At the next kilometre, I reciprocated. Two! This became our thing for the remainder of the run, at every kilometre marker we would high-five, with Sye’s hand on the bottom on odd numbers, and vice-versa for the evens. The kilometre markers are permanent road signs showing the way from Marathon to Athens, and made for highly visible celebration points. Only 21 high-fives each to collect.

Within the first few kilometres I saw a girl in front of me be given an olive branch from one of the people at the side of the road. My friend Coren had run the marathon last year and had told the story of how she carried one along the course, so I became determined to do the same. I received mine at around 5km, where the course deviates from the main highway which it otherwise follows to encircle the ‘Marathon Tomb’ (not that we saw it through the trees). Sye got an olive branch not long afterwards, so I snapped a selfie. Before the race Sye had said I was allowed 2 photos of him every 5km - and then immediately regretted saying that when he saw how my face lit up! Julia could get snap-happy!

The hills started rolling at 8km, gently at first but evermore upwards. On one of the hills I started chatting with a lady called Élisa who it turned out, lived in Paris and was working towards her PhD on French law and the female body. Would have loved to ask her more about it, but the marathon is not a place for in-depth conversation. Everyone has bigger things to focus on.

We passed under an arch at 13km with a sign saying to put on our green buffs. These had been handed out when we went to drop our bags, and were designed to turn us runners into a moving forest. In July, this section of course had been ravaged with wildfires which decimated the countryside and killed 99 inhabitants. Lining the streets were locals dressed in black, simultaneously cheering on us runner while also remembering their lost friends and family.

It was a hot day - 21 degrees and very exposed to the sun. I wore my green buff on my wrist and kept pouring water onto it, but it wasn’t very absorbent and my hopes of using it to cool off were dashed. The water stops came every 2.5km, stocked alternately with sponges and electrolyte drink. Sye and I shared a bottle to keep the plastic use down. At 20km they also handed out GUs, of which I took two. I’d bought some new flavours at the expo and ended up only taking the Salted Watermelon and Tri-Berry during the whole marathon - the former was definitely the better taste.

We reached halfway in 2:15:01, bang on for the 4:30 I secretly hoped we might run. But the hills and heat were starting to get to Sye, and he decided we should take a little walk break at that point. These walks would get more frequent over the next 10km, and we kept frog-leaping with a German lady who would say ‘bis bald!’ whenever she ran by during one of our walks. By 30km we had settled into trying a 900m run, 100m walk strategy. Unfortunately Sye’s right knee was starting to hurt a lot, and running was becoming more and more difficult. It pained me to see him try and hobble a few steps and then stop again in agony. The hills finally ended at ~32km but they had done their job. We decided to walk the last 8-9km rather than risk causing any more serious injury. It’s all about the long-term.

There was so much support along the course though, trying to help us along. The course wasn’t very pretty - even though it ran near the ocean you didn’t get a great view as it just stayed on a highway. However, I hadn’t realised we would run through a series of towns, and at each of these the inhabitants had come out onto the street to cheer and give out high-fives and more olive branches. I lost mine at halfway while adjusting my tutu, but it wasn’t long before I was given a second (which I smuggled back to Paris with me 🤫). Many of the supporters were children who had partaken in the kids race that was run alongside the marathon, as well as a 5km & 10km, and they were proudly wearing their medals around their necks as they high-fived runners. So cute!

I also noticed a large number of sculptures of runners which lined the course, presumably honouring Philippides or Spyridon Louis, the Greek who won the first Olympic marathon. I quite enjoyed walking the last part of the marathon because it gave me more time to appreciate all the things I was seeing - and I could make Sye pose in front of some of these sculptures, particularly the famous ‘Dromeas (The Runner)’ which is made of thousands of pieces of glass.

Walking also meant that Sye and I could chat and weren’t suffering nearly as much in the heat. I had been finding it a little difficult myself, given the hills, weather conditions and slow pace which made it feel like the marathon was twice as far as normal. It certainly also helped that by now we were heading downhill back to Athens, and the end was only a few high-fives away. Athens Marathon has an 8-hour cut off, so we were definitely going to make it, and at one point I suggested that we just stop off at a coffee shop for an iced latté before continuing! I think Sye thought I was kidding (I wasn’t).

Sye had forgotten to pack his ‘SYE’ t-shirt and so had to be content with me getting all the cheers. He was wearing an Adidas Runners ‘Lon on’ tee (the D fell off a while ago), and so when we came to the AR cheer point at ~37km we picked up to a small jog out of fear of ridicule / potentially being photographed 😂 The AR Athens vibes were great - thanks team.

With 1.2km to go, Sye decided it was time to ‘run’ (slowly, painfully) it in. I loved this final section, it was down a path through the National Gardens, lined with trees and supporters on either side. As we turned into the stadium I grabbed his hand. We still had 200m to go and it was a little awkward to run like that, but we made it work.

I teared up a little coming into the stadium, it is such an awesome architectural structure. I could feel the history of the marathon, of the Olympics, of ancient Greek history resonating around me. Or perhaps that was just the cheers from the supporters sitting on the steep stone steps. We raised our arms, crossed the line and I stole a kiss from my boy. Rejoice, we had conquered!

Athens Marathon was a fabulous event, incredibly well organised and supported. Sye had joked at the beginning that he was looking to better his PW (personal worst), and although we achieved that goal, we did so with smiles on our faces thanks to a great day out. We succeeded in ticking off another marathon, and thankfully did not expire as Philippides did at the end of his run!

Only 2 marathons left in the challenge to run 26.2 marathons by age 26.2 ✨