I left Nestani with a plan to take 40 minutes out of each of the last three segments. It held for exactly one of them.
The wine road
The section after Nestani is one of the flattest of the course. At one point we ran near something called the wine road. I was hoping for vineyards. I did not see any.
It was the most boring part of the race, and I started to wish I was somewhere else. On a trail, you are always watching your next step, so you stay present without trying. On a road, the strides come on their own, and the mind goes looking for something to do. Mine wanted to daydream, desperatedly.
So I started to play a game which is known among endurance runners: I would pick something on the horizon, a shape I could not yet make out, and make it my next goal while I guessed what it was. When I got there and found out it was a house, or a shed, or a tree, I picked the next one. That is how I covered the next 25 kilometers or so.
Ten toes
I reached Alea Tegea, CP60, kilometer 193, at 10:06. The savings plan was working.
My feet were not. The tape we had put on at kilometer 80 had tightened as my feet swelled, and it was now cutting off circulation to the tips of my toes. I took my shoes off, and what I saw scared me. All ten toes seemed to be covered in blisters. While I drained the worst of them, Lefteris cut new tape, and we wrapped everything again. A few minutes after leaving, I had to stop and redo it. Even what looked loose was still too tight.
It took time to find my pace again, but I did. Then the course turned left onto a four-lane highway, and I recognized it as the start of the last climbs. Clear these, and Sparta would be a half marathon away, all downhill. Walking over the bridge toward the climb was Yousuke, at his usual pace.
Hands on hips
There was no way I was going to jog this. I started power hiking. Then, suddenly, it became hard to move my legs forward at all. The pain was in my hips, around the hip flexors. I put both hands on my hips and pushed down, using my arms to take some of the load off.
The first climb felt eternal. On the descents that followed, I hoped for speed and got none. Whatever forward motion I had came from my calves. The rest of my legs had stopped responding. Cars passed at highway speed, some honking and cheering, and even that became hard to take. The savings plan was gone.
At CP65, kilometer 210, Lefteris started giving me the gels we had held back for the end. More painful jogging, more walking, depending on the gradient.
Thirteen minutes
CP68 is the start of the last climb before the long descent into Sparta. I arrived at 15:12 on Sunday, 13 minutes ahead of the cutoff. We swapped my carb mix for a liter of cold Red Bull. Lefteris decided to stop at every checkpoint from then on, to check on my state of mind.
The last climb was windy. Up to that moment, I did not know if I was going to finish.
On the way up, I thought about Pheidippides. He had to reach Sparta fast because his whole world depended on it. And here I was, unable to produce a single long stride. Maybe I did not have something big enought to loose?
Then the wind turned and pushed me from behind, all the way up. I took it as a sign. I was going to finish this thing.
Four minutes, four minutes
The Red Bull did not help. It made me dizzy. Around me, runners were drifting across the road, holding on to railings to stay upright. I had very little sense of time or space. I stopped looking at pace and cutoffs and just kept moving.
The descent came, and I could not use it. I settled on four minutes of walking, four minutes of running. Measured on my Garmin. The walking was the shortest four minutes of my life. The running was the longest.
The landscape changed on the way down. For the first time in the race, the mountains were green. Other runners flew past. I was not one of them, but I was giving it all I had. I forgot to refill my flasks more than once and just took whatever water each checkpoint had. Every downhill step pressed into my toes. I could feel my pulse in their tips.
Sparta
At the bottom, I entered the city and was hit by a sudden, strong sense of déjà vu. The sidewalks, the river, all of it felt like somewhere I had run before. I have never had the feeling so clearly. I walked a while and seriously wondered whether I had visited Sparta on a trip I had since forgotten.
At the last checkpoint before the finish, I drank some water and promised myself I would not stop running until the end. Lefteris met me on the way and ran beside me. We chatted like it was any other run, one of the many we have shared. People came out on their balconies and onto the sidewalks to clap.
Lefteris passed me the flag. I guess this is it. I passed Yousuke one last time. We never exchanged a word, but I was glad he was making it too.
We turned right for the last 600 meters. On the left, photos of past Spartathlons. On the right, people going about their Sunday evening, stopping to clap. Kids rode up on their bikes for high fives. I moved back onto the road, and Lefteris took the sidewalk, saying he would see me at the end.
I stepped on the last mat, and that was it. Only then did I look up and see the statue of King Leonidas.
35:31:10. Nearly 30 minutes ahead of the cutoff.
I will take it.
Afterwards
You do not understand the size of Spartathlon while you are running it. It has taken me days, and then weeks, to take in those 36 hours.
It started to sink in on the drive back to Athens. Now and then we passed a road sign with the Spartathlon symbol on it, and I had no memory of the place, even of stretches I had run in daylight. I never really saw the whole race. I saw the next checkpoint, the next ETA, the next landmark on the horizon.
My first feeling at the finish was not joy. It was relief. Not only had I worked hard for this, so had the people around me. My family and friends, who listened to me talk about training for months. The friend who looked after my apartment while I was away, who I reached out to last minute. And Lefteris, at every checkpoint he could reach, driving through the night and sleeping here and there. Having a crew like that is a real advantage out there. I was relieved our effort had paid off. And relieved not to see one more ETA on my watch.
This race was a dream first, then a distant and incredible thing, and finally a milestone, about 15 years in the making. In a way, the hard part was not the race. It was the training. The countless sessions alone, at the mercy of the weather. The race also reminded me how much I like trail running, and how much endurance depends on being present.
Since I got back, people keep asking what comes next. I have no idea. I put everything else on pause for this. First I will catch up on the rest of my life. Then we will see.
