Project s/y Fanny Port Said to Kastelorizo and Rhodos

 Before arriving Med I had been watching the weather and it looked like we had a small chance of getting weather with us. As we exited the Canal it was obvious it wasn't going to happen, sods law I guess. The wind was blowing between W and NW and if we tried to getting a WSW course it was SW and going the other tack we went NNE. As Egypt was in the way and the weather blowing from NW I thought better take the better way and escape N wards, the wind might change (fat chance!). So we tacked and were effectively heading for Cyprus. The only comfort was that we were heading for EU at least. As we progressed further N we were able to come to a heading of NNW and avoided hitting Cyprus but then we had the mainland of Turkey ahead of us. 

Sunset

Doing a Ferretti

I received a phonecall about 2 weeks ago asking of I was interested to step in as Capt on a 25m Ferretti as the permanent Captain unfortunately had had a heart attack so I thought it would be ok to help out for a few days and said I was available. 

Local boats

Subsequently I was contacted by the Owners office and had to send my requisite paperwork there as well as to go and show my face in person. Luckily it was almost next to where I live so could walk over. After having done the paper exercise my starting date moved quickly fwd as the program changed so almost next day I was back in the office with my luggage to pick up some CtM and directions. 

Local boats

I hopped on the green metro line and trained down to Piraeus and got a speedboat ticket for Poros and off I went. In Poros I had to take taxi to the owners villa to find the boat. I was met by Filipino staff working on the many boats in the private marina and I was showed around by Ray. The setting was excellent, the boat was seemingly alright, systems were tested and showed how they work. Small boat, small systems, Italian design - what could go wrong?

The Orloff fishermens jetty with Ferretti at the end

Next day was departure day, I had a call with the Engineer servicing the MTU engines for the Ferretti and was given a short instruction of how to start the engines as well as the heads up of the easily overheating sb gearbox that was due for service. Pretty straight forward and they started as they were supposed to. The boat was equipped with bow & stern thruster and a colleague of mine had warned me that as fast as you move in the marina is as much you are going to damage the boat so I took it really slowly and was careful with giving engine kicks ahead. The boat was full GRP so any small kick had her surging ahead immediately. Anyway, I cleared the exit channel without incident and soon enough I was heading for Spetses.

Local water barges laid up

In Spetses our berth was already organised in front of the Orloff restaurant and I let go anchors and moored in the Mediterranean stern-to fashion. I had to keep generators running all the time as the jetty did not have power to offer. There was onboard 2 small gensets in soundproofed boxes and they ran very quietly. Usually they were swapped every 12hrs or so in order to keep running hrs equal and to enable service & checks.

Local boats

It appeared that the program was fairly static, young guests were soon embarking accompanied by their father and he gave me and the son instructions to what to do and off he went. The next few days proved that the guests were more like vampires and kept under deck all day long only to emerge when the night clubs started opening. I remember when I used to be young like that. These days I value daylight much more. Luckily I had one Filipino boy helping me out in housekeeping and other small duties so I only needed to wear the Captains and Chief Engineers hat, he could have the Chief Stewards hat.

Local boats

The boat was working well except that the one genset started smoking and after checking it I discovered the oilsump full with oil mixed with diesel. I also checked all incoming water inlets and filters as well as impeller so it only left me the injectors as fault. I informed the office and they sent a technician within days to confirm the same. This left us with only 1 working generator and I was switching it off every day for a few hours to check oil and water levels are ok whilst the guests were ashore.

Local fisherman mending his nets 

Every evening I had the entertainment of watching all the yachts scrambling to port in search of a berth. Some were very good in finding their spots, others were late, fouled their anchors and blamed the boats around them for their own shortcomings and I and the whole port could refresh their vocabulary on Greek cuss-words. One morning some other boat even caught our anchor chain but luckily it did not disturb our anchor.

The misbehaving generator 

Next I discovered that many of the tank level gauges were pretty much not working at all as I had one day flooding in one of the showers but emptying the tank solved this problem. Luckily the boat even after 10yrs of existence had all the manuals intact and this was a great help especially the Ferretti Owners manual. While I was getting acquainted myself with the boat I discovered the irony that the Master suite bed was located on top of the blackwater tank so in essence the principal slept on a pile of sh*t. Not sure if this was done deliberately during construction or no Engineer/ Naval Architect had ever thought the implications in fung shui fashion of how it would affect the harmonies onboard...  

Fishermen clearing their nets

Every day we were eating with the security detail at Orloff restaurant, it may be a 5 star establishment but I soon lost interest in the menu and the daily Greek food fare. Very delicious but the monotony of it got to me eventually. Then came the day of leaving and the patriarch came himself onboard and said he would take the boat back of which I had no objections as it was his to commandeer. 

Orloff at dusk

During the short crossing back to Poros waters we were back in the private marina and I was checking that everything was ship shape and packed my stuff for leaving the next day, my 10 days was up. As it was Friday I stayed the weekend and relaxed at Poros Image before returning to busy Athens. The next week I had to visit the office again to have lunch with the office manager and I gave my observations during my time onboard for what they could be look at doing next winter service period.

Orloff arranged a table for two

Lichadonisia islands

Having heard about the Greek Seychelles I decided to go visit. The group of Islands are located on the NW corner of Evia. You can either drive on the mainland to Kamena Vourla and take a ferry over or drive through Evia and boat over. I decided to do it the hard way and drove through Evia to enjoy the scenery instead of the heavily trafficked boring highway (and tollways) up towards Thessaloniki. 

Lichadonisia

So after having left Athens early morning I arrived at Ag Georgios abt 3.5hrs later having traversed all northern Evia. The village is small and the guest house or hotel (Adamakis Studios) was looking dismal but the room was clean and had a/c, fridge and an ensuite. Only a stone throw away there were several restaurants and continuing towards the center there was more outlets. At a whole everything looked a bit run down like an old prostitute in dire need of a facelift. 

The "new beach"

Next morning we got up and got going for Kavos where at the end of the land is a big camping site (most campervans there looked more or less permanently stationed there) and there were big signs for boats to Lichadonisia. Our 1st day we went to the closest beach on the biggest Island (Monolia) and closest to Evia. The ticket vendor said it was the oldest establishment there (the other was the "new beach"). 

One of the lagoons

Anyway, off we went and there was a small tour around the islets and we were showed a wreck that had sunk at abt 5m depth and also a colony of seals (didn't see any) but they were supposedly there. There were visibly quite a lot of current at places and the coxswain warned us of swimming too far from the beach as the currents could be dangerous. 

The "new beach"

Not to worry, we were quite happy to enjoy the sun on the loungers along with pretty good service from the bar. There was a constant stream of people coming and going and at times PA announcements in Bulgarian/ Russian for what I assume group tours visiting the Island. All in all not a bad place although the limited swimming area due to currents was a bit disappointing, on the other hand one could roam the Island at ones hearts desire and visit the now deserted buildings that used to house the residents up until the 70's when the last ones left. There is no water or power on the Island and the beach organisation ran on portable gensets. Even camping overnight was prohibited.

The "old beach"

 Next day we decided to try out the new beach. This place was visibly fresher looking as it appears it had only been organised a year or so ago. There was knee deep water and one could roam all lagoons in front and back of it. Bottom was soft sand with a few rocks here and there. Service worked well and boats came frequently over from Kamena Vourla. Luckily we came early as shortly after the whole beach was jampacked with people. Personally I liked the new beach better than the 1st original organised beach on Monolia.

The "new beach" on left with surrounding lagoons

Of course the Islands have a place in Greek mythology and it is said to be the pieces of Herakles servant who tried to poison him. 

As the story goes, the hero Herakles won a bride as a battle prize. Her name was Deianira. As she was transported to the mainland by boat the ferryman, a wild centaur named Nessus, attempted to rape her. Herakles was watching from the shore and fired a poison arrow. As the half-man/half-horse lay dying he told Deianira to take some of his blood as a talisman to ensure that Herakles would be always faithful to her. As time passed, Herakles took another woman as his favorite. Deianira remembered what the dying centaur had told her and rubbed some of the centaur’s blood on a cloak which she sent as a ‘gift’ for Herakles with a servant named Lichas. When Herakles put the cloak on, his skin began to burn and he realized that the cloak was poisoned so he threw the servant into the sea. Licha broke into pieces and Poseidon, the sea god, turned him into stones creating the Lichadonisia Islands. (Courtesy from Ruth Kozak's blog)

Address to Haggis

I had the honor to be invited for Burns night at the British embassy and took opportunity to record the prayer to haggis that is customary to be done at every party when the haggis is brought in.

When I was in Athens back in 2003 or 2004 I attended a Burns night at the Grand Bretagne hotel with the Athens hash house harriers and it was a grand affair with hundreds of people attending.

Nowadays the expat community has shrunk so much that there is no more parties organised as such and not all whisky flowing with live music, dancing etc. We had a civilized whisky tasting though with pipemusic, not bad blended stuff but had better...

Marathon

Running, running and more running. Week in, week out. 5x per week running. The program that I was following was advised to by my running friend Alethea, see http://www.halhigdon.com/  . I started a bit late training so I had to cut off 3-4 weeks in the start so I literally hit the ground running. Wore out a pair trainers while training and managed to get a pair of new ones some weeks before the marathon day.

On the finishing

The interesting thing was to research running and there is a huge amount information on the net. There is talk about training programs in general, shoes, keeping pace, cadence, stride length, breathing, keeping good form, nutrition, racing nutrition, injuries and how to avoid them... the list goes on and on... it's basically a science on its own.

The first thing to realize was that many of the forums and blogs were aimed to elite runners, you know, those guys that the ordinary Fred would not even be able to keep up with for a hundred meters and are usually training up on some high altitude location, eating rabbit food or was it pasta now...? So, the idea was to pick out the useful stuff for an amateur like me. It was pretty simple, you gotta run a lot, eat healthy, avoid boozing and have fun while doing it.

Anyway, I had done some running earlier and had also completed some 10km races for fun and feeling that I was on my physical limits back then but little did I know and I was a bit daunted when I saw the training program as copied below, some may wonder why the fractional distances but I have converted this from miles to kilometers:

WEEK    MON      TUE       WED      THU            SAT           SUN

1       Cross      4.8k run  8k run      4.8k run    8k pace      12.9k

2       Cross      4.8k run  8k run      4.8k run    8k run        14.5k

3       Cross      4.8k run  8k run      4.8k run    8k pace       9.7k

4       Cross      4.8k run  8k run      4.8k run    9.7k pace   17.7k

5       Cross      4.8k run  9.7k run   4.8k run    9.7k m run  19.3k

6       Cross      4.8k run  8k run       4.8k run   9.7k pace   14.5k

7       Cross      6.4k run  11.3k run  6.4k run  11.3k pace  22.5k

8       Cross      6.4k run  11.3k run  6.4k run  11.3k run    24.1k

9       Cross      6.4k run  8k run       6.4k run   Rest      Half Marathon

10     Cross      6.4k run  12.9k run  6.4k run   12.9k pace  27.7k

11     Cross      8k run     12.9k run   8k run     12.9k run    29k

12     Cross      8k run     8k run        8k run     12.9k pace  20.9k

13     Cross      8k run     12.9k run   8k run     8k pace       32.2k
14     Cross      8k run     8k run        8k run     12.9k run    19.3k

15     Cross      8k run     12.9k run   8k run     8k pace       32.2k

16     Cross      8k run     9.7 run       8k run     6.4k pace    19.3k

17     Cross      6.4k run  8k run        6.4k run  4.8k run      12.9k

18     Cross      4.8k run  6.4k run     Rest        3.2k run     Marathon

Cross means cross training, i.e. any other training but not running, pace means to keep a paced run, Fridays are not listed as they are resting days.

As one can see, one can forget all about those lazy weekends nursing a hangover in a cozy bed. No, it was up at cocks crow as in Greece it gets pretty hot during summer so one wants to optimize the running conditions. I also wondered why there is no full marathon length training distance but apparently it wears the athlete out. I took that as face value as I usually like to confirm that I can do things by trying it out before hand but thinking of doing 43k just for the sake to see if I can do it already sounded like a silly idea to my basically a bit lazy personality. So I set off following the program. 

The first lesson I got was about running injuries, mainly in the form of chafing. For those who has not experienced it I can tell that any form of chafing (on your nipples/ under your arms/ in your groin) can be excruciatingly painful especially after hitting the showers or the sea as I did many times. That was quickly remedied before going running by applying liberal amounts of baby ointment in the areas that were affected before. Although the problem of finding a suitable tape to protect nipples is still unsolved, almost nothing will stick onto my sweaty skin until the end of the run. I found simple medical tape has proven pretty ok but requires multiple long strips and in the end they hang onto my chest hair. The commercially sold nipple protectors did not work for me, nor did any foot plasters. 

My first lesson in nutrition came in week 7 when I was supposed to do the 22.5km run. I got up early morning and put on my trainers and drove up to Imittos mountain where I usually ran and set off. Just like that, no breakfast, a bit of water before and some water for the run. A few hundred meters after 20k my body just gave up, I could not run a single pace no matter how much I tried. Just being stubborn I walked as fast I could the rest of a km and cut the run short abt 300m from the set goal. The next day I discovered that I had done the famous "bonk", i.e. run out of energy.

I hit the forums of pre run nutrition and during run feeding and subsequently stocked up on energy goo's at the local sports outlet http://www.xtr.gr/ . The vendor was very helpful and pointed me the right stuff for runners so picked a few to try them out. Next week when I was doing 24.1k's it went off without a hitch as I had a proper breakfast and took my goo's and isotonic during the run around every 45mins as I read in a blog post, so at least I proved to myself that only relying on water is not sufficient for long distances unless you are an elite sprinter.

Having sorted out these few technicalities all that remained was running, and run I did. In the beginning I started with an average pace of around 7.5min/km but as the weeks went on I got a bit faster. Not very much, but a bit, in 10km I was abt 10min faster than when I did the 2012 Classic Marathon 10km race. Many times it depended on how much I had ran the previous week or during the week. I think most of the time my legs were continuously fatigued.

On week 9 I got the opportunity to test my mettle in an organised half-marathon leaving out of the city of Marathon. The event was an eye opener of how easy it is to get strung along by following faster runners just because you can as you rested the last 2 days. The organisers were probably more focused on the elite runners than the average Joes as there was nothing left at the last feed station and at the finish line. Quite sad actually. Anyway, I got a time of how I am doing on average so it was good as well as I could identify errors in my racing performance. One thing was to hold back in the beginning.

On week 14 I participated in a mini-marathon in Spetses Island, a few hours south of Athens. The run went around the Island and was 25km's. I was scheduled to do only 19km that Sunday so the run covered well for that. I had not rested the previous 2 days so I was very much in training mode and took the run as an exercise (as many blogs recommend to do). The day turned out to be very hot and humid and I drank around 3.5ltr of fluids during the run + goo's. The course was quite hilly at some stages and the last few km's in the main village was excruciating gauntlet going along the seaside of it, I was always expecting to see the end behind the next bend but there was always another to master. The organisation was very good and water and isotonic was aplenty.

After the Spetses run the weather started to get markedly cooler as the winter is setting in so I needed less water on my training runs and getting used to long distances I skipped the goo's too and settled for a good breakfast, usually comprising of a banana/ apple, coffee and milk, yogurt with cereal/ goji berries or raisins and an energy cake.  I could feel I was getting ready for the big event but still had my doubts if I could do it or not. The scary "wall" blogs haunted me as well as the unknown effect of going beyond 32k's. Could I do it or not?

Then, the Thursday before the run I ventured down south Athens to pick up my BIB number but could not get it as I was part of the Athens hash House Harriers group and only the group leader could pick up the runners kit (sic!). Well, as there was an exhibition going at the Tae Kwon Do centre I had a stroll and looked at all the displays trying to peddle some sort of product that was sports related and then ventured back to my pad uptown.

So, finally the day had come for which I had been training fervently for the past months. My friend Alethea had dropped out as she had developed hairline fractures on her legs and had to wear a cast. I had my BIB and all. Got up at 5.30hrs AM to get breakfast and prepare myself to leave. The last buses for Marathon were leaving Athens centre at 06.45hrs so I aimed to be at the bus stop latest at 06.30hrs.

The weather was quite cold so I was wearing long sleeves and pants as well as carrying my water bottle and energy cake. I took the metro down to Evangelismos station and got out, there on the road was 5 buses loading up and I got in line. Soon enough I was onboard one and sat down. Interestingly I was on the same bus as 2 other running friends, Giannis and Gabi. They are elite runners as far as I am concerned and after a chat they told that they don't expect a good result as they had done a 160km ultra marathon a couple weeks before (eventually they did around 3h45m) and were a bit "tired".

On the bus they played a pre recorded tape explaining what the procedure was for the start. Change your outfit, deposit your extra gear in the truck, location of toilets, water availability etc. The bus ride took about 45mins and I was there in good time. During the trip I had eaten my energy cake and had some water. Once off the bus I simply stripped off my long pants and jacket, stuck them in the official marathon bag and deposited in the DHL truck numbered according to my BIB. Then I just wandered around looking for my starting block. It was pretty easy as each block was colored according to the BIB and found my "booth" pretty soon. The organisers were giving out water and playing music and giving out instructions all the time.

As the clock neared 9am all runners got in their starting blocks and the atmosphere got more charged. I saw a Finnish woman in my block and we had a short chat of this and that. She was from Eastern Finland and had started doing marathons after her husband decided to quit smoking and set a goal of doing a marathon, she was on her 10th marathon with her husband. There were some speeches from the organisers of who is launching each block or something but I can't recall any of that blabber, then they fired off some fire works and the 1st block left. There was 3-4 min interval and the next block was fired off until it was our turn. The time was around 09.12hrs and off we went. Some went off with a great speed, I was pacing myself as I recalled my half marathon had ran too fast in the beginning, I kept repeating to myself that this is now 42k's, not 21...

Surprisingly the first few k's to the feed station went very fast as I was going with the flow in my own pace. I was not feeling tired and had some water as the wise men says that once you get the feeling of being thirsty it is too late. So, I was keeping myself hydrated. The beginning was pretty straight forward and had ran it once before so I knew what to expect, the road was going downhill but was doing it easy albeit faster than the set pace I had envisaged but then again downhill always goes faster for me. At the tumulus of the Athenians it was even keel and the pace slowed down a bit. The feed stations were coming at every 2.5k's so it was easy to keep oneself hydrated, still I was carrying a half litre bottle on my hip belt just in case (and my 2 goo's + two in my hand).

At 7.5k's I took my 1st goo and kept on plodding, did not feel bad at all but as the running guru blogs say a goo needs time to get into your system and as you are running your digestive tract is not working very hard so I go by the rule that 1 goo every 45mins. Once we got to Nea Makri we were over 10k and people were cheering and there were loudspeakers churning out music so loud that the smaller runners were whisked to the other side of the road... (not really :D ). At this point I found it difficult to follow my run tracker as it's voice was drowned in the general noise so I was running mostly on my gut feeling.

Then at 15k's I was feeling an urge to wee, it had been there since the start but I had kept putting off and off and as I was running I was seeing both boys and girls nipping off into the bushes for a quick relief. Was thinking that if I keep it off much longer I will enter Athens and there is no other option than to queue for the porta-loo so I also made a decision and quickly jumped behind a bush for a slash, maybe lost a precious 15s there but better that than a few minutes waiting for a free loo.

At 17.5k's the going was supposedly starting to get tough with the 20k uphill as per the run trail profile. As I had trained on the steep hills of Mt. Imittos I found these inclines much less so I kept keeping a pretty steady pace. The running track was pretty quiet and all you could hear was the smattering of running shoes and my tracker announcing laptimes every kilometer. At one point I was running past a Swedish guy and had a quick chat with him, it turned out he was doing his 100th marathon race, good on you Pelle from Gothenburg!

At 26k's I arrived Loutsa or some village thereabouts and the noise was huge. I thought my tracker had ran out of steam as I could not wake it up nor hear it but I soon discovered that the surrounding noise was just drowning it. This posed me a problem of keeping pace as I could not hear it saying what speed I am keeping so I was a bit alarmed of what to do and I started calculating times and checking public watches to keep me occupied and at the same time concentrating in a steady pace.

Around 31k's on we had passed Pallini town and were passing into Athens, the last steep incline was here right before the 32k marker. Then it started going downhill and I felt myself cruising towards the finish line. I still could not feel any "wall" coming for me so I felt good to go. At 35k's I passed my pad but as I did not have my keys with me there was no debate whether to go home and enjoy a nice cool glass of wine while watching runners going by. I was passing the French and American school as I could hear English and French being spoken from the spectators on the road side. I saw a friends husband on the side of the road probably waiting for his wife to come by.

Then I was passing Ethniki Amyna, Megaro Moussikis and so forth, it was comforting for me to realize where I was going as I knew the metro stations by heart and the run track was following the metro line for a while. Then I arrived into the heart of Athens and I could almost see the finish. I was feeling the strain but kept on going, I was thinking to myself that all the other runners must feel equally tired so we were in the same boat so to speak. At 40k's I was still kicking myself with "only 2k's more!". The route went a bit uphill and then it aligned downhill straight for the Panathenaikon stadium. People were everywhere cheering. I arrived at the approach of the stadium and gave my last spurt and passed a few runners to boot. I could see another Finnish flag ahead of me. Some countryman of mine was finishing as well.

I ran past the finish line and slowed down to a walk. I felt exhausted and tried looking for my friends but could not spot them. I kept waling around the stadium and realized I need to check my tracker for the time and managed to open it and got a finish time as 4h 36mins. Then runners were processed like in a factory, at one point I was given a medal, at another I got some fruit and water, then last stop was to collect my clothes I had shipped off at Marathon. All around this line there were runners lying on the pavements with space blankets over them and feeling sick. I guess it was a lack of training or pushing one self too hard. I still kept walking although my legs protested heavily. Once I had my clothes bag I changed into dry gear and headed for the metro in order to get home.

The Endomondo tracker result

In the evening I was hobbling around like an old man feeling the strain I put on my body. It definitely was an experience and worth doing. In fact, everyone should try a marathon once in his lifetime... At this point I don't know if I ever will run another marathon but I sure will keep up with the lifestyle in or to fend off the expanding waistline...

Unofficial results

Marathon half-marathon

It has been a long time since I took up the proverbial "pencil" to put down some thoughts of mine. I guess the routine of doing the "captain's blog" after the many years on Kalizma sort of put me off blogging for awhile. It also did not help that I changed jobs and work on a confidential project, there is not much you can write about something that is confidential except that it is confidential.

Start of the race, picture compliments of the organizers

Well, enough said, I have now been in Greece for a year and as I'm still apparently going to be here until summer 2014 I took up running to get myself fit and to keep fit and also to avoid getting a wardrobe of bigger and bigger garments the size of military troop tents.

So, when I arrived here I took up running with the Athens Hash House Harriers (AH3), a group that I used to run with when I was here first in 2003, it was nice to meet old friends although the ranks had thinned considerably due to the financial crisis of the country, many expats had left for more lucrative venues as well as exorbitant tax measures of the state.

Anyway, running once a week is not going to keep that trouser size down to constant so I started running and walking near my pad on the Imittos mountain. It is big enough to provide hours of walking trails and nature for those that fancy it. By now I am quite familiar with the trails up there and run there at least once a week in addition to my other runs elsewhere.

Then in the beginning of this summer I was asked by AH3 if I want to do the Athens Classic Marathon 10km run or the full one as it was getting full of participants and they'd have to submit the runners asap while there was still space left. I decided on a split second, maybe a bit foolishly, that I would run the full length of 42km. Well, said and done I now needed to act on my decision so I took up a training regime to get me fit for the run in November.

When I was on summer holidays in Finland in August I was still just running for the fun of it but when I came back I started following a program that would get me fit for fight in just 16 weeks. The problem was that I did not have 18 weeks, so I shaved off the necessary time to fit the program to the full marathon. I had to cut off about a month. The middle of the program included a half marathon and this is what the post is about, the program coincided exactly with the race date so I penciled it in and registered for the measly amount of 5€.

Meanwhile I was following my program and then arrived my first 22km run that was a disaster, went out straight in morning without eating and ran only on 500ml of water, by the time I reached 20.5km I was so much out of energy that I had to walk the remaining 2km and eventually cut short some 750m, runners call it "bonk", I had effectively "bonked" my run.

During the week I was studiously following the runs and studying information online for runners regarding the stitch, paces, chafing and nutrition and other stuff so the next week I was wiser, I had stored up on race goo, gels with carbs that will give energy when running as well as had a energy laden breakfast and a pasta the night before and ran with isotonic in my bum bag bottle. The 24.2km run was heavy but eventually I finished it running all the way through.

Me before start

Then came the race day and I was not overly nervous, I followed the same formula as on my 24k run and had my gels in my bum bag as well as isotonic. I was trusting the organisers to give water during the route. I met up with another AH3 runner, Knob Goblin, and we chatted until it was time to run. The run was offed on the dot at 0900hrs as advertised and we all were off. I was going with the pack and feeling great as my body was humming from all the energy I had ingested that morning.

Knob Goblin, me and Elizabeth

The road went downwards so I was cruising and my tracker was telling me incredible paces every km, I was doing below 6min pace/ km which was surprising to me as I was more accustomed to be at around 7min/ km pace on my dirt tracks but apparently the smooth asphalt helped. I tracked my half time to be 1h9min at 11km so it was all to do to keep same speed until the end.

At 8km I had a gel as I had been running around 45min and I was drinking water with it, meanwhile I was sipping on my isotonic to replace body salts with the ones I had sweated out, the sun was high up on the sky and quite hot. It was in a sense pity that the run had not been the previous day as Saturday had been overcast with isolated light showers the whole day, but no, the Sunday was sunny and warm. Luckily there were waterstops during the route.

The first half went straight down to Nea Makri where we made a U turn and run up the same way we came from apart that we also ran around the war memorial of Marathon, that detour was nearly 2km. When back on the staright road it was 17km and I was feeling a bit beat up but I manned up and picked up pace as I felt I was just slacking down although I felt I had the energy to go on, I guess my thighs were seizing up on lactic acid and they needed a wake up.

At some places there were drummers and some cafe's that had setup music systems blaring out music that was a nice boost for morale as well as intermittent spectators clapping runners on. At abt 18km where the last water stop was there was no water, they had apparently ran out. It was not a problem to me as I was carrying the bottle from the last stop and had still half left. I can only imagine what other runners who were thirsty thought of it. I kept on going with same pace uphill towards the end and it seemed an eternity before I sighted the triumph.

I ran through the end and heard the machine beep for my tag so I was recorded, at same time I clocked off my own tracker and I clocked a final time of 2h22m time which was abt 4m longer for my return than the 1st half. I guess a good result for an intermediate runner like me.

Tracked map and graph of my half marathon

Again there was no water at the end and nothing much else either, just empty cases bearing witness that all was already finished. At a stand I was handed a medal and a plastic bag of some sponsored souvenirs from the organizers. I saw a first aid group with half a case of water and asked if I could have a bottle but they refused telling me this is for emergency cases only.

So, it was done, I can only tell that the race was poorly organised for the end, I think they might have had the requisite amount of water for the runners but the distribution was haphazard as I could see runners taking a sip of a bottle and the throwing it away when a cup of water would have sufficed. The organizers also received some flak on their Facebook page regarding the same issue, I hope they wil take this into account next year if there will be another race arranged.

Now I am carrying on with my training for the big event in November that I hope will be better organised.