Rocky Raccoon 50k Recovery Run

Saturday morning was not quite a full week since my Athens marathon, but it was time for my 50k trail run.  This would be my first 50k.  I ran one last December on a cold morning, but I had to drop out for various reasons.  I just wasn’t feeling it.  It’s the only race I haven’t finished and I’m still not happy about it.  I’m signed up for it again this year to take care of business.  Back to this race though...  This was the Rocky Raccoon 50k trail run.  The race takes place in Huntsville State Park in Huntsville, TX and I sure like to run here.  Between the trees, the trails, and the lake, it’s always scenic and peaceful.  I feel lucky to have such a place only 90 minutes from my house.

I wasn’t sure how I’d feel doing an ultramarathon less than a week after the Athens marathon beat me up so bad last Sunday and then I got a cold.  It turns out that my recovery went faster than expected.  I got over the cold by Tuesday and I did a midweek hour-long morning run that felt really good so I had a feeling my legs would be ok.

I've got the crazy eyes!

I planned to run this race with my friend Cathlene Webb, who had been training for it for quite a while.  This was the first time she’d run a race this long and was looking forward to becoming an ultrarunner.  Her pace goal was a bit more relaxed than what mine would have been if I were racing it, but I wasn’t racing it.  I just needed the miles and it ended up being very beneficial to get in seven hours of running at the pace I’ll be using for the century next February.  Also, it’s always good to get more miles in on the actual race course.  My father enjoys volunteering for these events and I certainly like having him around to cheer me on.  This time, he got put in a high traffic area and I was able to see him four times plus the start and finish of the race.

The race started at 6AM, which was about an hour and a half before the sun came up.  I went out and bought a simple headlamp and it seemed to do me well enough.  Running in the dark with a headlamp takes some getting used to, especially on trails with dips, hills, and lots of roots.  I plan to do at least one long night run this winter to get me good and used to running inside of a little circle of light.

From the beginning, the plan was to run the flats and walk the hills.  That’s always a solid plan when you know your day will be long.  Energy saved now is energy available later.  The course was dry despite the rains earlier in the week.  This is good.  I can handle cold, but cold and wet is a bit of a bummer.  I say this fully aware that the big run in February might be rainy and cold.  That will suck, but it is what it is and you run the race you’re given.  Weather would not be a problem on this day, though.  Clear skies gave us a clear cold starry morning and when the sun came up, it heated up into the 60s.  We spent nearly the entire race under a canopy of pines.

The ultrarunning community is really great.  They are very friendly and accepting.  I don’t get any of the elitism that pops up from time to time in my triathlon and even marathon circles.  The fast people are fast and the slow people are slow but we’re all in it together and the nonracers provide outstanding support both on and off the course.  The aid stations are legendary and I feasted on peanut butter and jelly bagels and banana pieces with the occasional fistful of potato chips.  I opted out of the Oreos, m&ms and pretzels this time.

The race was two 25k loops, which works out to 15.5 miles each loop.  By the end of the first loop, the sun had come up and I was ready to shed some of the morning layers of clothing.  I had a drop bag at the start line, which was also the finish line and the 1^st loop turnaround.  After ditching my headlamp, the beanie, and the sweatshirt, I was good to go for another loop.  My legs were a bit tired, but it was nothing like Greece.  Running on dirt is a lot easier on the body even when you crank up the miles.

We're coming down the chute

Cathlene’s husband Jeremy and another friend of theirs joined us for the first couple miles of the second loop before turning back.  It was nice to break things up with a few new faces and Jeremy would sprint ahead and set up for some photos as we came shuffling by.  Cathlene had never run longer than a 22 mile training run so I had to point out to her when we passed the 22 mile point and she was running a new record distance for herself.  I told her again when we passed 26.2 miles and she was officially a marathon runner.

The miles started to weigh on us once we got into the final 10 and we did a lot of walking mixed in with the periods of running.  It was no problem since the goal was to finish and get the time and miles on my legs.  It was pretty liberating to let the clock go and just enjoy the run and the scenery.  And so it went for the last five miles.  We hit the final aid station 2.8 miles from the finish and topped off on snacks and water.  We crossed paths with a few other stragglers along the way and I knew we were well clear of the eight hour cutoff for the race so I took it easy and had a good time.

We crossed the line and my father was waiting for me with camera in hand.  We received our finisher’s awards and posed for a few photos before retiring to a nearby park bench and resting a bit in advance of the long drive home.

Final time: 7:37:44.  Mission accomplished.

Marathon vacation to Greece, part 3 RACE DAY

Daylight Savings time change happens in Europe a week before it does here in the states.  That meant that I’d actually get an extra hour of sleep the night before the race.  Seeing as how sleep was something in short supply due to our busy schedule and jetlag, this was a real treat.

Even though the marathon itself didn’t start until 9AM, the route in and out of the small town of Marathon would be closed starting at 6:30 and it was 45-60 minutes from Athens by bus.  Add to this the fact that they wanted us there early to avoid hassles.  It meant we needed to be in the lobby of the hotel by 4:30AM.  This didn’t shock me so much considering I’ve gone through the Disney Marathon experience.  I set a wake-up call for 3:45 and set all of my clothes out the night before.  45 minutes should be ample time to get up, get dressed, and get downstairs.  Alida got to sleep in because she was just running the 5k and she’d never have to leave Athens.

The next morning my alarm went off promptly at what looked to me like 2:45.  Wait, what?  Apparently DST didn’t kick in for another 15 minutes.  What a lousy break!  Oh well, as soon as I opened my eyes, I was up and that was all there was to it.  I got dressed and went downstairs and sat in the lobby with a few other non-runner tourists from Spain who were waiting for a bus to the airport.  Slowly the other runners began to trickle down in various states of sleepwalk.  I had on cotton tights under my race shorts and my thick Rocky Raccoon hoodie.  I planned to stash these in my clothes bag to pick up after the race.  As usual, I’d be running in my Dynamo shirt.

The hotel generously opened the breakfast buffet early for us and we nibbled at bits of food.  I’m not a coffee drinker, so I settled for a little OJ and water.  I don’t like to eat too much before a big run, so I just ate a banana and part of a muffin.  Our group was made up of runners with various degrees of experience.  Bette was running her 25th (and final) marathon.  Mark was a Boston veteran and the odds-on favorite to finish first out of our group.  Steve, Charlene, and Genevieve were running their first-ever marathons.  If you count the ultras, this would be my 7th marathon.  I wouldn’t say I was nervous and I certainly didn’t feel any pressure for a given finish time, but I wanted everything to go smoothly, so I wouldn’t say I was completely relaxed either.

The bus came and we all climbed onboard.  This bus took us to Syntagma square directly in front of parliament.  From here, we boarded one of the twenty or so busses standing by to deliver people to Marathon and the starting line.  The drive was about 40 minutes and in the dark.  I didn’t know it at the time, but in hindsight I believe it traveled the marathon route in reverse.  Something neat about the Athens marathon is that there is a blue/grey line painted on the street from the start to the finish.  It crosses over the road to apex all the turns.  In theory, if you stay on that line, it’ll guide you on the shortest path along the course to the finish line.

We were dropped off and there was a very small crowd there.  We were some of the first people at the race site.  The starting area was very well-staffed.  We were handed clear plastic bags to wear if we wanted to block the wind.  It was chilly and with a light breeze.  The weather report was for cloudless skies and it would prove to be true.  More on that later.  The starting area was broken into seven corrals based on predicted finish times.  The elite runners were in corral 1.  Mark was in 2.  I was in corral 3 along with Joel and Carol, both of whom had a very similar estimated finish time to my own (my guess was 4-4.5 hours).  Most of the others were in Corral 5.  Power walkers were in 7 and brought up the rear.  Joel said their plan was to go out at a pace to finish in 3:45:00 with the expectation that they would fade later in the race.  That sounded fine to me.  We walked around the area taking photos next to the marathon flame and watching as more and more people arrived and things started to fill up.  Finally, we looked for a place to sit down and wait.  There wasn’t much indoor waiting area and most of that was taken, so all of us ended up grabbing a piece of floor inside the women’s changing area.  This was pretty strange to me, but nobody else seemed to mind.

As race time began to approach and the sun came up, I changed out of my tights and decided to ditch the hoodie.  Everything went into my bag which had my race number on it, and I delivered the bag to the appropriate truck.  It was a good system even though everyone (myself included) waited until the last minute so there was a big crowd near bag drop.  After we sorted that out, there was nothing to do but wish each other good luck and go hang out in our corrals for the start of the race.  It was fun to look at all the other international competitors there and see the event shirts from all over the world.

Eventually, 9:00 came and with great fanfare, a releasing of balloons, and lots of confetti, the runners in corral 1 were launched.  Since it was a small corral, it was only a 1 minute wait for the people in corral 2 to go off.  Two more minutes and it was our turn.  3…2..1.. Go!

Here’s a course profile taken from my Garmin GPS watch race report.  You can see that the first six miles are relatively flat.  Carol, Joel, and I ran then at roughly a 9:00/mile pace, which would put us on course for a sub-4 hour finish.  I was aware there was a long uphill somewhere in the middle, but I couldn’t remember exactly where.  After the hill leading up to mile 10, things stretched out before us and we could see the long climb ahead as we ran up Mt. Immitos into the ridge lining the Athens valley.

There were quite a few people running in costume, which I suppose was appropriate since it was Halloween and also a big anniversary event for the marathon itself.  Do they celebrate Halloween in Greece?  The race support was very good.  Aid stations were every 1.5km starting at around 3km in. Every aid station had water, although strangely the water was generally in the form of bottles of water. This was all well and good and very portable, but the unfortunate result was that probably at least 50% of the water ended up on the ground or discarded along with the bottle. Nonetheless, it was a more versatile option than simply cups of water because you could run with it and sip as you wanted. There were some cups of water too, but bottles were the main container. Besides water, there were some stations that had sponges, PowerAde, PowerBar, bananas, and lots of medical staff with cans of topical analgesic (think of the spray-on stuff you use on sunburns). I never saw any portacans, but apparently there was really good coverage in that department as well.

Joel was the first to really feel the race and a little after mile 12, he said he was going to run to the halfway point (13.1 miles) and then take a walk break.  This sounded good enough to the rest of us so we decided we’d all do it.  This went on every now and then for the next few miles until Joel had to step off for a toilet break and told us to just keep going.  We did and Carol and I kept up the run for the rest of the big uphill, which finally relented around mile 20.  It was never a steep uphill, but ten miles of unbroken uphill was amazingly draining.  When we got to the top, it was obvious and we could see Athens stretching out below us.  By this point, we were more than three hours into the race and our pace had dropped off pretty dramatically, just as we expected it to.

The terrain was obviously taking a toll on me, but so was the weather.  Even though it was in the low 60s with a cool breeze, there was not a cloud in the sky and the sun was a big drain on my energy.  Aside from the water I was splashing on myself, my shirt and shorts were dry.  Moisture evaporated quickly from my body.  I brought four Hammer gels with me and I ate one every hour.  I also grabbed a couple banana halves along the way.  I could have probably done for eating a gel every 45 minutes, but I never hit the wall, so I guess my nutrition was adequate.

The last six miles were a lot of work.  Running downhill beat up a different set of muscles and I felt fatigue in my knees and upper legs.  There were a few smaller uphill stretches during the overall descent and Carol and I agreed to walk them.  I’m pretty grateful for her pushing the pace gently like she did.  I think if I had been running alone, I would have extended my walk breaks and probably finished about ten minutes slower overall as a result.

The fact that distances were marked only in kilometers was both good and bad.  It was good in the sense that you got to see a marker much more frequently.  It was bad because there were nearly twice as many of them!  As we got under 10km from the finish, I started doing some math in my head based on our current pace and I predicted a finish time somewhere in the 4h15m-4h20m timeframe if we kept a steady pace.  We passed under the inflatable archway for the start of the 10km race and then the start of the 5km race.  Every kilometer felt like it took forever and when we finally hit 40km, we knew we were close.

The marathon finishes in the historic Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens. This stadium, originally built in the fourth century BC, was excavated and refurbished for the 1896 Olympics in Athens and used as the finish for the Olympic marathon course. In 2004, this stadium was again used for the finish of the marathon and it’s an incredible feeling running into the stadium with people cheering you on.  The giant metal Olympics rings from the 1896 games are still standing in the back of the stadium and it’s built like a horseshoe with one end completely open.  We passed the 42km mark just outside the stadium and we knew we had less than 300m to go to the end of the race.  We could see the finish line.

Crossing the line was a great feeling of accomplishment and I knew I was part of history.  Alida had positioned herself just past the finish line and snapped us coming across.  She yelled out to me to let me know where she was so that I could head back there after doing my post-race stuff.

This was my first non-flat marathon and with the exception of my 50-milers, I have never had a race beat me up this badly before. I was completely wasted at the end of the race. Walking around the track to get my medal, turn in my race chip, and get my drop bag wore me out so bad I had to take a break on the lawn before returning to the stadium to find my wife who was waiting for me. Mark did indeed finish ahead of us and he had a very good race, finishing somewhere in the 3:30 timeframe.  It turns out that Carol and I crossed the line together as the second in our group to finish.  Joel and Gustavo were also within ten minutes of us.  As each finisher in our group came in, we’d get a finish photo of them and then flag them down to show where we were waiting. A few minutes later, they would come limping over to our area and our little group would get bigger for the next finisher to come in. We stayed this way until the last person in our group made it in at nearly six and a half hours. It just seemed right to be there to cheer each other in. Several people told me later that it meant a lot that we were there for them when they crossed the finish line.  It was a very emotional experience for some of the runners—especially those who had never run a marathon before.

To top it all off, I got two really nice medals. One of them was the medal for the 28th running of the Athens Classic Marathon in the horseshoe shape of the stadium. The other was a commemorative medal signifying the 2500th anniversary of the battle of Marathon.  This was it.  I had been to marathon Mecca and it was a hard-earned memory I’d get to keep forever.

Official finishing time: 4:17:03 Garmin Log Here.

Marathon vacation to Greece, part 2

After the museum in Olympia, we were scheduled to all meet up for lunch and then a bit of shopping before heading out east to Nafplion for the night.  As a group, we started catching on to the fact that the tour guides were obviously being coached to bring us to various places for lunch and dinner.  This isn’t a crime, but the food and atmosphere starts to get pretty lame pretty quick so a few of us staged a little insurrection and ended up getting our own lunch at a really pretty street side café under mossy oak trees.  This didn’t go over all that well, but hey, we’re the ones paying the bills so in the end, all was forgiven.  I have no regrets.

Olympia is on the western side of the Peloponnesian peninsula and Nafplio is further east.  Between them lie mountains.  The two routes are either a longer route around the mountains or a shorter but harder drive through the mountains.  I think the original intention was to go around them, but road closures or something caused us to have to go through the mountains.  I loved it.  There were a few wrong turns and some very scenic overlooks that seemed more like what I’d expect from the alps than from southern Greece.  Nonetheless, we took a few small breaks here and there to break up the monotony.

One of the places we stopped at was a tiny mountain village whose name I simply cannot find any record of in my photos or notes.  It’s a shame too because it was really neat.  The day was foggy and overcast with some drizzle and it added to the gloomy mood.  Most folks hunkered down in one of the local cafes and chatted over cappuccinos while I and a few other adventurers climbed the steep windy cobblestone streets looking for the next exciting discovery.  One of the really amazing places we found was a bar that looked like it was carved into the side of the mountain with rough stone walls and candles sitting in nooks in the stone surrounding a small dance floor with a bar on one side.  Techno music was playing and the place was completely empty except for the bartender who greeted us with a smile.  A couple of classic Depeche Mode records were hanging on the wall over a small DJ booth in the corner.  The village had plenty of tourists, but they were all Greek tourists.  Our tour guide told us that foreign tourists almost never see this village since it’s out of the way and off the main travel routes.  I would have liked to have spent a day or two there, but the schedule was tight so off we went.  If anyone can identify this place from any of these photos, please let me know.

We arrived in Nafplion after yet another long day on the road and it was starting to take its toll on all of us.  We were sick of the bus and sick of tight schedules, but we were still friendly and joking with each other.  We checked into our hotel and had dinner downstairs.  It was a nice, but unexciting dinner and when it was done, Alida and I again found a few adventurous people to go out to explore the old town.  Alida and I always managed to end up with different people for these off-hours excursions and it made for a different experience every time as each of us had our own different personalities to mesh together.  We did a little bit of shopping and grabbed a gelato while checking things out.  This went on for an hour or so until everyone started closing things up at 10pm so we went back to the hotel.

Nafplion is a seaside town overlooked by the massive castle of Palamidi that dates back to the early 18^th century.  I think visiting the castle was supposed to be one of the tour stops but because of a time crunch, we just got to drive up to it and take in the vista from the castle’s walls rather than a full tour.  It was pretty, but off we went for another whirlwind day of Greek history and culture.

It was off to Mycenae and Epidaurus on Friday.  Mycenae was the site of a collection of ruins that date all the way back to the 1100s BC—making them some of the most ancient architecture and design we’d see on the trip.  I was kind of out of it for this part of the trip and while I did enjoy the ruins and the history lesson, I didn’t really take photos here.  Epidaurus on the other hand, was pretty impressive.  The theater at Epidaurus is known for its incredible acoustics.  The theater seats about 15000 on limestone steps, but due to its design, a speaker onstage at one of several key acoustic points can be heard unamplified with extreme clarity no matter where one sits, even in the “cheap seats” up top.  It’s uncanny how well sound carries there.

After this, it was north over the Corinth Canal and back to Athens to our new hotel and a pasta dinner.  We stayed at the Park hotel on the north side of town and it was very modern and sophisticated.  Friday night’s dinner was the closest we had to a “dress up” dinner even though I still wore jeans.  After dinner, there was more shopping afoot and after-hours exploration.  I suppose it’s the fact that our schedule was so packed with stuff to see that we had to sacrifice sleep time to get out on our own and see things without a guide.  This was both good and bad.

Saturday morning was off to Marathon for the lighting of the flame and the historical pre-race presentation.  To be honest, it was pretty lame.  It was a bunch of tousists out in a field watching interpretive dance until a guy in armor finally showed up and lit a torch.  Then we all piled back into the bus for the hour-long ride back into Athens before plunging ourselves into the race expo to shop and pick up our packets.  Unfortunately, we had delayed the race expo so long that they had sold out of much of the official merchandise, which really pissed off some of the people in the group.  Nonetheless, we all got some stuff and then we went to see the Acropolis: Athens’ most famous landmark.

The Acropolis is situated on a high hill right in the middle of the city and can be seen from a tall building anywhere in Athens.  The Parthenon is the most obvious structure there, although there are others as well.  Just below the hill is the new Acropolis Museum, which was only built a year ago.  Because Athens is such an old city with so much history, the excavation for the museum ended up uncovering a whole set of ruins from the Byzantine period.  Not wanting to destroy them, the museum was built over them and features many clear glass panels in the floor that allow you to look down onto the buildings and city below.  I’m told that they are planning to finish excavation and add it as a whole new previously unplanned wing of the museum.  The museum features many artifacts from the area as well as what is left of the Parthenon Marbles, also known as the Elgin Marbles.  Google them if you don’t know what they are because they are incredible to see.  Unfortunately, we only got to see a tiny portion of them because the rest of it is housed in the British Museum in London, England.  This is an extremely divisive and controversial issue and our tour guide made no attempt to mask her contempt for the current situation.  My personal feeling is that they should be returned to be put on display at the Acropolis Museum along with the ones that are already there.

Back to the hotel for dinner and bed and then it was time for the Marathon race on Sunday morning.

Marathon vacation to Greece, part 1

As a marathon runner, I have always wanted to run the Athens Classic Marathon at some point in my life.  It just seemed appropriate to be there on the same course where it all began in 490BC when the armies of Greece stopped the Persian invasion and Pheidippides made his famous run to announce their victory in Athens.  It was certainly in my bucket list like so many other trips and experiences with no particular priority.  All of that changed in January at the Houston Marathon expo when I found out that the 2010 Athens Marathon would be the 2500^th anniversary of the famous battle.  That sealed the deal and I knew that 2010 had to be the year for me.

It turns out that Houston and Athens have a marathon exchange program with a winner being selected for the trip out of all the sub-4 hour finishers.  I didn’t win the drawing, but I did sign up all the same.  What followed was months of planning, coordination, and training which culminated on October 24^th with a flight to Greece to meet up with a group of Houston marathon runners for an eight day tour of the country and entry into the race itself.  It sounded perfect and Alida and I hopped the plane.

Greece is a country of  roughly 11 million people and about 4 million of them live in Athens.  Greece is also going through some pretty harsh austerity measures right now due to its struggling economy and as such there is a fair bit of social unrest.  Nonetheless, tourism is a major industry and we never felt unwelcome.

We opted to arrange our own flight instead of the tour’s flight.  The cost was about the same, but the flight schedule was more favorable.  The downside of this was that we’d be traveling alone and it was up to us to get from the airport to the first night’s hotel to meet up with everyone.  The metro was on strike so we took the bus.  It ended up not being a big deal at all and by the time we left, we had become very familiar and handy with the bus system in Athens.

We settled in and met up with the rest of the group that evening.  The first order of business was meeting the fellow travelers and the travel agent who would be accompanying us for the entire trip.  It turns out our hotel has a rooftop restaurant with an incredible view of the Parthenon.  It is also located only a block from Syntagma square, where the parliament building is.  After introductions, we struck out together to walk through the market district to dinner at a cozy restaurant.  Traditional Greek food was to be the fare for the entire trip, which is funny because it’s not really anything I have not had before—it was just usually better.  This trip has definitely given me an appreciation for Moussaka.

We got back late and discovered what would be a recurring theme for our vacation: start early, finish late.  That’s great for maximizing the Greek experience, but it’s pretty lousy for pre-race rest.  Oh well, I’ll rest later.

Monday morning began our first full day in Greece.  We all gathered bright and early in the lobby for a bus ride to the harbor, where we boarded a small cruise ship for a day-long cruise around the nearby islands with stops in Poros, Hydra, and Aegina.  The water was rough going out and a few of us got some mild seasickness.  Thankfully the water calmed as the day went on.  Poros looked pretty, but we were only there for half an hour so we didn’t accomplish much other than a scenic walk up and down the waterfront.

Boarding the ship, we had lunch on the way to Hydra Island, where we got to spend considerably more time.  Hydra was wonderfully beautiful in a postcard kind of way.  You had the deep blue water and white-walled houses lining the hills above.  The harbor area was fun as well with donkey rides and a WWII fort to explore as well as a marketplace with windy back alleys.  We broke up into little groups and spent an hour or so wandering around taking pictures and exploring where the streets went.  It was fun to cross paths repeatedly with others from our group who were doing the same thing.  Finally, after many photos and a few trinkets, we got back on the boat for the ride to Aegina.  While here, we opted for a small bus tour of the historic island with stops at the ancient Temple of Apollo, the Church of Saint Nektarios, and a pistachio farm.  Aegina is famous for its pistachios and as a pistachio lover, I simply couldn’t resist checking out what some people call the best pistachios in the world.  I have to admit they were pretty darn good.

Finally, we got back on the ferry and headed back to Athens.  After a bus ride to the hotel, we decided to take a walk into the market in search of some shopping and a good restaurant.  Alida and I went out with four others from our group and ended up at a place called Tepina that had a great covered outdoor area.  We ended up sitting and chatting and sipping wine until about midnight when we called it quits and wandered back to the hotel.

One of the best things about this group trip was the fact that we immediately had two big things in common—we were all into marathons and we were all from Houston.  This means that we instantly had things to talk about at all times.  As we got to know each other over the course of a week, we developed a great mesh of personalities and never really clashed at all even when we got tired and cranky.

Tuesday morning brought an early day in the hotel lobby with all of our bags as we would begin our three day road tour of Greece.  We were introduced to our tour guide, Konstantina, who went by Tina (pronounced with a soft T like “Dina”) and Demitrios our driver.  Tina had a great sense of humor and a limitless capacity for going into as much detail as we wanted on anything we saw along the way.  Either that or she was really good at making things up on the spot.  Just kidding!  It turns out there is a very vigorous tour guide school process that takes years to complete.

We started with a four hour drive to Delphi, which is in the mountains west of Athens.  Delphi is well known for its ruins and the oracle of Delphi, who sat up on a rock and inhaled fumes coming from out of the ground until she got high and predicted the future.  The ruins at Delphi are truly massive and ancient.  There were even some small tunnels that were unmarked, but also unblocked and a few of us with particularly adventurous ideas grabbed Alida’s trusty flashlight and squeezed into them.  They twisted and turned and popped out in other places around the ruins.  It was a lot of fun exploring the place above and below ground.

Another noteworthy thing about all of the ruins around Greece is that they are completely overrun with feral cats, dogs, or sometimes both.  We first noticed it at Delphi, but time and time again there would be a pack of dogs or cats at any given ruins.  I guess tourists keep feeding them so they hang around.  We had a good time in Delphi, but unfortunately the weather turned on us and a thick rainy fog rolled in so we took shelter in the nearby museum, where many impressive ancient sculptures were on display.

After Delphi, we stopped off for lunch at a restaurant in a small town to wait out the fog where we were rewarded with a great view of the valley below.  Back on the bus, the two-hour drive to Olympia turned into a five hour affair.  We all kept a mostly good attitude, although Tina never could come to terms with the fact that athletes hydrate differently and as a result, we need more restroom stops.  I think this detail mystified and frustrated her throughout the week, but hey, it’s just how we are.  The really unfortunate thing about the foggy weather is the fact that we could not get a good view of the bridge across the gulf of Corinth at Rio.  It’s a modern suspension bridge and it’s the only link (aside from the tiny isthmus of Corinth) between the Greek mainland and the Peloponnesian peninsula.  After crossing the bridge, we had another hour or so to get to Olympia.  We arrived late that evening—long after dark—and had dinner and went to bed.  This was a shame, because our hotel at Olympia looked like one of the neatest places we stayed at during the whole trip and I would have liked to have stayed there for a while.

On Wednesday morning, I realized I was getting a bit stir crazy and wanted to stretch my legs a little.  I met up with Bob and Gustavo at 5:30AM for a pre-dawn run in Olympia.  When the sun came up, we grabbed breakfast and headed out to the ruins.  Olympia is an amazing town.  The ruins at Olympia were not only the home of the ancient Olympic Games, but also the Temple of Zeus, which is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  Sadly, the temple was destroyed long ago by fire and all that remains are some buildings and columns, but the complex is still massive and Tina told us all about the 35’ high ivory and gold statue of Zeus sitting on his throne surrounded in his massive hall by marble columns.  We also saw the stadium where the original Olympic Games were held in ancient times.  We went to the track and all of us decided it was only appropriate to take a lap down and back on the ancient race grounds.  After the ruins, we headed to the museum at Olympia, which was full of very detailed sculptures including Hermes of Praxiteles holding an infant Dionysus.

That’s a lot to read so far and it's only the first half of the week, so I’ll pick up part two in the next post, along with another to cover the marathon race itself.