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| Would you please take a few steps backwards? |
*Victory Is Ours (Pheidippides, the first "marathoner")
I am back in the ‘hood,
recharging my batteries in Greece one more time this year. I realize that this
is no small luxury—trapsing around the world—and this journey is clearly funded
through a clever combination of the kid’s milk money and my retirement savings.
The Greek philosopher Epicurus
opined μηδεν αγαν (“nothing too much”), but
we’ll set aside that sage advice just for now.
I woke this morning in the
megalopolis that is Athens and somehow forgot where I had parked the rental car in my delirium. For
the life of me, I could not remember the model, the color, or even the most
basic description. After a cursory search, I assumed the car had been stolen in
record time, but I felt too embarrassed to even consider calling the police—the conversation goes like this: “Someone
stole my rental car. I don’t know what kind of car it is, what color it is, or
where I parked it.”—opting not to enhance their morning amusements at the precinct with a bit
of tourist drama.
Eventually, with the help of my
dear friend Thanasi, I did find the car (a white Hyundai, apparently exactly where I left it) and
promptly set off through the thicket of Athens bound for the island of Spetses,
our matriarchal homeland. Getting there involves driving first to Eleusis, then
on toward Corinth, and on to the very circuitous coastal road on the eastern
side of the Peloponnese, that big inverted hand which is most familiar to
classicists and their ilk, perhaps less familiar to package-tour,
island-hopping tourists.
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| Spetses sidewalk art from the 19th century--pebble images |
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| Kilometer 23.0 on the course--a single road around the island |
This is the first rental car in
decades that seems sub-standard. Should I expect more for 18 euros a day? I
have this funny feeling that all the wheels are going to fly off at any moment.
But that sensation might be enhanced by very strong coffee and too little
sleep.
It looks like rain is forecast
for my race weekend. I am running the 25 km Spetses Mini Marathon on Sunday,
while assiduously avoiding the 5000-meter open-ocean swim, part of the weekend
festivities. I want a really good workout, a better finishing time/place than
last year, and a win in my new and improved age group. I don’t want to do
anything dramatic like drowning.
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| Poseidon Hotel--start and finish of the race |
“Utopia,” a Greek word--literally "no [such] place"--is formed
from the prefix ου and the
noun τοπια (=place, cf. topography), and clearly this lovely
country is such a good place…with a host
of problems. (Sound familiar to you?) But let’s have a coffee, we can talk
about the problems tomorrow.
Along the hairpin turns that lead
to Spetses, I stopped (yes, for a coffee) and asked the café owner, “how far is
it to Porto Heli?” His answer speaks volumes about the Greece:
“If you are an idiot, like most
Greek drivers, you can make it in one hour. If you are just a little crazy,
maybe ninety minutes. If you drive like a foreigner, expect two hours.”
I sort of split the difference
between (a) and (b).
I took the ferry across the
channel at 2:30, then walked throught the hora
(town) to my uncle’s house. (He was my grandmother’s nephew and therefore
my mother’s first cousin. She has several of them on the island.) This is the
first time in 40 years I have not stayed at the hotel, which is totally booked
for race weekend. This island of 4000 expects 8000 singlet-clad runners from
all over Greece and the world.
So I am ensconced in my cousin
Sofia’s villa (she lives in Switzerland), which is tre beautiful, comfortable, and located beyond the maddening
crowds. In short, a great place to sleep before the big race on Sunday.
----
First Things First
My aunt and uncle had an
incredible, multi-course meal waiting for me. I know over the span of a
lifetime, that when someone cooks for you in Greece, the expectation is that
you will eat until you fall over, which I approached: baked mullet (fish), wild
dandelion greens, village salad, cheees pies, potatoes cooked in lemon and oil,
baked zuccini. They literally stood over me and stated in no uncertain terms that
I could not get up from the table until I had eaten everything.
I needed help getting up.
Somehow, despite it all, I laced
up my running shoes after a short siesta and jogged an easy four miles, then
swam in a turbulent sea, perhaps a bit too far offshore—the skipper of a
passing sailboat did not see me flailing my arms and somehow managed to miss
me before I had to dive deep fast.
Now, the prospect of more food.
It is worrisome. But I will rise to the occasion.
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Countdown to the race
The multitudes began appearing at
noon on Friday, along with some nasty weather: a strong blow from North Africa, emanating from the open ocean to the south, with huge surf and menacing low clouds—oddly
enough, punctuated by patches of clearing and a still-intense summer sun.
Western Greece and the Ionian islands (between Greece and Italy) are getting
hammered today. Television news footage shows cars being swept off the island
of Kefalonia and into the maelstrom of ocean.
One can only hope that there will
be some improvement before Sunday’s race. A light rain might be welcome for its
cooling effects, but the combination of high humidity (it feels like 200
percent!) and air temperature (mid-80s) makes for a difficult combination. More than forty years of running and competing lead me to a universal observation: everyone
else will be suffering too.
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| Spetses Museum, built by the (evil and vicious) Turks--an inside joke |
Last year I finished among the
top 35 (in a field of over 800), but narrowly missed winning my age group. Now
I’m the youngster on the block in my age group, at 60 years young. I'm out for blood, hopefully not my own.
Nagging tendinitis in my right foot is worrisome. I'm trying not to think about it.
-----
I walked the 1 kilometer to the
town center, had breakfast at the Hotel Faros, and then arrived early at
another hotel that is the venue for the Spetses Mini Marathon weekend. I was
able to pick up my race packet swiftly and met a nice contingent of Brits who
are competing in the 25 km—and all them just happened to be 60! We were sizing
each other up in a friendly kind of way.
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| Race course, ~ kilometer 23 |
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| Race passεσ the Old Harbor |
This afternoon features the kids’
swimming events—500 and 1000 meters of ocean swimming—and tomorrow the
open-ocean events for adults (1500, 3000, and 5000 meters), beginning with the
longest event: a swim to the mainland and back. If today’s swells last until
tomorrow, the event will be challenging, perhaps perilous. I will be delighted
to sit at one of the oceanfront cafeneions
sipping my frappe and observing someone else’s agony from a distance.
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| Gimme shelter---the super yachts are pulling in and tying up |
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After breakfast, I strolled to
the nearest isolated cove for a few hours of swimming and reading. As I wound
my way down a goat path, I could hear the breakers slamming against the shingle,
the sound of polished pebbles rolling up and down the angled beach, the eucalyptus bent sideways
from the onshore gale. One look at the boiling surf and I decided to read
rather than swim.
So I was taken aback when I
returned to the house for our 1:00 lunch, only to be told by my 84-year-old
uncle, “Let’s go for a swim before lunch!” I had visions of performing CPR on
the beach (or having it performed on me), but was compliant as ever,
positioning myself on the back seat of his motorcycle. We navigated the
confusing warren of twisting streets and alleyways, emerging on one of the partially shelted beaches just beyond the town. In fact, there was no beach visible whatsoever,
only the crash of surf that crept up to the paved road, which is part of the
race course. Without hesitation, Kyriakos dove in the water, propelling himself
offshore. (I repeated to myself a firefighter’s mantra: ABC,
airway/breathing/compression.) Then I followed in kind.
Once we were beyond the immediate beach, the
swells became long and gentle, and the bouyancy of the salty Aegean makes
swimming ever so easy and effortless. We were corks on the open ocean, bobbing
about. Getting out of the ocean without being slammed against the rocks was
another matter. Kyriakos performed this task as if he’d done it his entire
life—in fact, he has—but I was totally graceless, getting knocked over a half
dozen times before extricating myself from Poseidon’s fury. It seemed as if I
were reenacting that moment when fish became man 250,000 years ago: should I stay or should I go?
--------
We returned to an enormous
lunch—mousakka, four types of cheese, salad, tzatsiki (cucumber/yogurt spread with lots of garlic), hunks of
dark village bread, fried potatoes, fruit, and a dessert of baklava—the latter
being pieces that were sized for Cyclops. After an hour and half of nonstop
eating, I was effusive in my gratitude—before stumbling off in quasi delirium for a
siesta at 2:30. Thank Buddha for siestas!
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