Monday, 10 November 2008

Runners' Return!


Just walked in and hobbled up the stairs after the epic journey which was the Athens Classic Marathon. The adventure started last Wednesday, with the car-bus-plane-bus rigmarole which took us to the legendary city on Thursday morning, and finished half an hour ago with the reverse, done at a somewhat slower, stiffer pace courtesy of the small diversion on Sunday to run 26.2 miles in the Greek sunshine.

What can I say about it? It was tough, really tough, and hot, really hot. But I got round and could not stop smiling for the last 500m. And running into the Panathinaikon
stadium was everything you could hope for in a marathon finish: exciting, inspiring, beautiful, emotional, well-organised, dramatic... and downhill!

I will write a proper account of the race when I have recuperated a bit more (i.e. drank more tea- I'm surprised I got round without a good British cuppa in the morning) and have fully digested everything that happened. Right now, I am pleased just to have experienced it, and want to shout out to everyone "I DID IT!!!"

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