In the heart of Syntagma Square, Athens, Greece

The past weekend I joined my wife and a group of friends traveling to Athens Greece for the Marathon Weekend. The event consisted of three races, a 10k on the Saturday evening and a 5k and Marathon on Sunday morning. Of course there would also be some sightseeing to be done and some really delicious food to eat.

Meeting the City and the Race Expo

Our flight arrived quite late on Friday evening. When we arrived at the hotel around 11pm, we really only had time to checked in and order some pizza before bed. We stayed at the Marblous Athens. It’s a very nice hotel in the center Syntagma square. Great location and they provided a really nice breakfast every morning. First thing on the agenda Saturday was to taxi over to the race expo. And by taxi over, I mean get scammed by a taxi who brought us there. We were told one price when we hailed the cab and then charged double when we arrived. From then on, we used Uber to make sure that didn’t happen again.

The expo itself was not great. They set the entire thing up to be a single winding path through the ground floor and the upper floor of this arena building. Many times, as we were making our way through, it became so crowded that you could barely move. There was also no option to skip the booths after you get your number; or to go straight to the exit. You had to walk all the way through. The thought that kept running through my mind was, “What if there’s an emergency?”. It would be an absolute disaster.

After the group all got their race numbers and whatever else was needed, we walked down to the harbor to enjoy a nice lunch together. By then it was already time to head back to the hotel for short a bit of rest before the 10k that evening

The Athens 10K

So bit of a confession. I hadn’t run since I completed the London marathon. Like, at all. I did one session on the peloton bike, but never managed to do a run. So I was more than a little nervous before the 10k race. A few times I considered just backing out all together. Thankfully I didn’t as it actually turned out to be a pretty fun race. One of the minus points for the race was the corrals and set up for the race. It was all very chaotic. People just kind of going everywhere. Lots of pushing and lack of respect for other people.

The course itself though was quite nice, though. The roads were very spacious. I was able to do my run/walk intervals without ever feeling like I was trapped or getting in peoples way. It was very fun to run an evening race again. Running when it’s dark out with all the special lighting was really cool. The course is, however, one giant climb up and back down. The first 5.5-6k is pretty much all a steady incline up. Mercifully you got to come back down on the back side of the race as you see in the elevation result from my garmin below.

The final treat was getting to run the last 200 or so meters into the olympic stadium for the finish. It’s really a beautiful building. The medal you recieve is also quite nice. I was surprised by how good I felt during the race. There must have been some residual fitness left over from my marathon training!

After the race, a few of us went to dinner at Tazza All day bistro & wine bar. One of our friends had been there previously and was excited for us to see this place. Let me tell you, it did not disappoint! The decor is a sight to behold. It’s like the victorian era threw up everywhere (it a tasteful way). More importantly, the food was fantastic. I had my first and (sadly) only gyro there alongside a greek gin and tonic. It was an early night for us as Dani still had to be up in the morning to take on the Marathon.

A bit of Sightseeing

Dani was up and out the door early to catch a bus to the town of Marathon where her race began. For myself, it was a bit more casual morning. Antoinette, Jack and I enjoyed another nice breakfast at the hotel and then took a nice walk through the city center and up to the Acropolis ruins. There’s so much to see in this city everywhere you look.

Visiting the Acropolis of Athens

The acropolis area itself is a ticketed area. For €10 you get access to the main ruins and the “slopes”. It was well worth every cent. The ruins are breathtaking as are the views out over the city. It’s amazing how much has survived all this time. And even more so, to see how they actually engineered these structures.

It looks like they are doing some work to restore or preserve the Parthenon building. You can see the scaffolding on the front and a crane on the inside. Behind it there were stacks of what looks like greek lego blocks. Different bits of columns and pillars. On the south slope we saw the remains of the Theatre of Dionysus. I wish there had been more time to see more of the areas and museums.

From the top of the complex you can see part of the olympic stadium. That’s where we would head next to wait for our friends to cross the finish.

Marathon and Celebrations

The day of the marathon turned out to be quite a bit warmer than expected. Coming from the Netherlands where the weather had been cool and rainy the past few weeks, it made for a bit of a tough day for the runners. I’m happy to report that everyone in our group who started that morning, finished the race, including two first time marathoners. Congrats Hugo and Robbie. Well done!

I’m especially proud of Dani, for battling through pain, doubts, and stomach issues to complete her twenty third marathon (see fingers below). I know this one was a bit of a struggle for her, so it makes it all the more sweeter to cross that finish line. Congrats Love, you are amazing!

We all celebrated with a big group dinner at Ella Greek Cooking. There was a nice space reserved for us upstairs to enjoy some lovely greek food and drinks. A genuinely great way to cap off the weekend before our flight home in the morning.