Athens and historic Marathon

Not even in my wildest dream I had thought about running 42.195 Kms. That too in the original marathon course, the track where its believed that Marathon got its name 2500 years back. In fact I didn't even know about history of marathon, until one day I read about Athens Marathon and history of marathon in Dilip's blog: Athens Beckons. For more information on history of marathon refer wiki.

I started running ( to be precise jogging ) some 4 years back, when one day in office I suddenly realised some thing very trivial in life - that I am sitting in front of computer almost all thru day and not getting any sort of physical work out ;) I initially started running in Bangalore University ( Jnanabharthi campus) over weekends. More than jog, I really enjoyed greenary, calm/peace nature around the campus. 40 minutes of running was max I used to do, and at the end of it I used have that feel of having achieved some thing in life :). I know 40 minutes of running was not big thing, but the whole package of getting up early morning, listening to ur favourite songs on ipod,   breathing clear pollution free air, sweat at the end of jog was some thing which I slowly started getting used to. I made plans of running in Cubbon park and lal bagh ( Most popular parks in Bangalore) too. When I shared it with my friends, even they got bit excited and made mini epic trip kind of plans with jogging as well. Our plans used to be like early morning at 6 AM be in Cubbon park or Lal Bagh. Jog for an hour or so, then try out some ayurvedic juices being sold outside park. Then head off for the most interesting part - sheep/goat leg soup + chicken palav at local military hotels in chickpet/balepet area. My friend Adarsh had very good idea about eating joints in whole of bangalore and each time he did took us to good places to eat. Finally its time for deserts and coffee. We head off to Hotel Udupi Krishnal Bhavan in Chickpet, have some kesari bath or so and finally the coffee. We used finish all this and get back home by 9 AM. Imagine doing so much on sunday morning. Some time my sunday used to get over by this time, because I would end up sleeping rest of the day ;)

So that's all that running had meant to me so far. I read Dilip's blog on day right after finishing Sunfeast 10K run in Bangalore, so I was quite excited and inspired to go for Athens Marathon. But by then I was very uncertain on what/where I would be after 5 months, that's during marathon. So I just safely brushed off the idea of running marathon. Once I got settled in UK ( 3 months back), I again started thinking about it, and called my friend Karthik, who had also registered for the same marathon. But marathon registration had closed long back in March itself :(, I got bit disappointed. But I kept exploring the marathon website: http://www.athensclassicmarathon.gr, found a loop hole in it to register, did some golmaal, a bit of risk and I registered :) and guess what??? it did work :). So next task was trip planning - flights tickets booked, hotels booked, applied for visa and I was all set for the Greece trip.

Meantime, with 3 months that I got of preparing for Athens Marathon I did tried to follow marathon training schedule as much as possible: http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/Mar00index.htm. Every time I finished long runs during practise I used to get more excited and aimed for running longer. Eventually just 2 weeks before marathon my right knee got injured pretty badly ( runner's knee problem or some thing, which is quite usual when one tries to sqeeze in 18 weeks marathon preparation schedule in 10 weeks) :(. I was really unsure on running marathon and had prepared for changing it to 10K run and enjoy the Euro trip. Couple of days before marathon, I tried to run 5KM and I did it quite comfortably. So I just told myself "I should try for full marathon and face consequences later" ( which I am facing even now ;) ).

With all the excitement around of running marathon, there was bad news as well. Dilip's visa got delayed and stupid embassy people called him for interview on the day after the marathon. So he had to back off his marathon and euro trip plan. I arrived in Athens on 30th Oct, day before Marathon. Karthik and Srini were in Athens by then and had attended Marathon expo and collected BIB and other stuffs for me as well. So we were all set for the big day. I was tired with journey and wanted to have good sleep before marathon. Incidentally that night day/light saving was getting turned off, so I was happy that I got 1 more extra hour to sleep. Karthik was frustrated because he had to kill one more hour :). He had travelled from US the previous day and was still in jet lag. He was wide awake all thru night. Next morning it was D day. I woke up and felt quite fresh, I said "thank god I had good sleep", keeping his head down  karthik said - "dunt talk about sleep man" :D

From Athens we were taken in bus to Marathon village, our start off point. We had to take back the same route while running. Oh Man!!! let me tell u guys... the driver could have as well turned off engine and let the downhill road do the job of turning wheels. From 10Km or so it was complete descend for good ~20 Kms stretch, and all that meant to us was to run  the same terrain back but for change it would be uphill :(. But that was fun part of Athens marathon :).

We reached start off point quite early, it was same place where battle of marathon took place 2500 years back.  The place looked pretty ordinary with barren mountains around, but the historical significance and so much hype had made it look physcologically different for most of people ;).

Finally it was D time, Race started and I started running slow and study. Trust me thinking about running 42 Kms in a stretch is nightmare for anyone, (I am not talking about crazy Kenyan or Nigerian who aim to finish race in 2 hours). All you got to do is keep fooling your mind and keep it diverted. Songs on Ipod is your best bet ( though I prefer not to use it during marathon), or look at crazy people running with you, get inspiration looking at senior citizens running same race, or do what ever you want but just don't let that number 42 get into your mind. Think about next fuel station ( our drinks/snacks point). Take 5 Kms at a time. Aim at reaching next water point 5 Kms away. Then all you got to do is to find 8 such fuel stations. Doesn't it sound simple this way, than thinking about running 42Kms? :D.

Some how I started race in block 3 ( it just means that all the people in that block had finished earlier marathons within 4:30 hours). They all looked quite serious runners and guess what??? I had to run contionously for first 20 Kms with out any walking in between. I generally walk for 2 - 3 minutes after every 5 Kms. But here if I had stopped and walked in between, the people behind me would have ran over me :). Every one was running at descent pace, after 10 Kms I tried going towards foot path to take a break and walk for few minutes, but few enthu runners were using footpath to over take other runners, so even that wasn't an option :(. So eventually I had good half marathon finish completing 21 Kms in 2 hours 8 minutes.

So far my knee looked to be in good shape and right when I started feeling happy about it, it started hurting at 26th KM. I slowed down a bit, tried to walk in between, tried applying spray, ice packs, pain killer gels on the way but all that made no difference to knee pain. After 35 Kms, it started hurting real bad, luckily I wasn't tired, I wasn't exhausted but it was just the severe pain I had to deal with. Luckily again uphill was over by then and we had entered Athens city, so it was pretty much flat surface to deal with. I had serious thoughts about backing off and stop hurting knee further, but some how I just kept motivating myself to finish race. I had put in so much time and effort to prepare for race and I just couldn't let myself down at the last stage. Crowd all along the way cheered us as well, few even read our names from BIB, hearing - "Bravo Harish Bravo" along the way was really inspiring to finish the race. As the finish line got closer, my knee started getting worse and I just wanted to finish it off.

The most thrilling moment was ofcourse entering the Olympic stadium in Athens. I knew I had done it by then, the last 170 meters run was inside stadium before crossing the finishing line. Inside the stadium there was loud inspiring music, people cheering all around and photographers taking pics as though we were celebraties. It was quite exciting atomsphere around and I was more excited for the fact that  timer was ticking 5 hours 6 minutes. Considering it was my first marathon I was quite happy with my effective finish time of 5 hours 2 minutes. I crossed the finish line with severe pain in my knees, but right after I crossed it I didn't feel any pain whats so ever. Guess it was just physcological :) Received my Medal, got some fruits and water to rejoice/refresh.

 I got back to stadium to receive Karthik and Srini. We were all excited to have finished race. After some photo clicks, it was time to get back to hotel and deal with our after marathon recovery :) Not to mention I was limping all thru while getting back to Hotel, but there was joy in that pain!!!