The Road to Sparta

by Dean Karnazes

  “Does it seem hot?” he asked again.

  “It seems a bit warm, yes.”

  “It seems hot to me.”

  I glanced at him and saw that he was drenched in sweat, his chest and forearm muscles bulging out from under his race jersey.

  “Is there ice at the aid stations? Have you seen any ice?”

  “Hmm . . . not sure. Haven’t been looking, honestly.”

  “I need to get some ice.”

  He seemed a bit out of it, not that I wasn’t. I couldn’t tell if it was he who was losing it, or me. Most likely it was the both of us.

  “I need to get some ice. And some Coke. Have you seen any Coke?”

  “Hmm . . . not sure. Haven’t been looking for that, either.”

  “Oh right, you’re only eating nuts and berries and sesame mush.”

  “Pasteli.”

  “Huh?”

  “That sesame mush, it’s called pasteli.”

  “Oh, right. I still think you’re crazy to be eating that stuff.”

  Another aid station appeared up ahead.

  “I’m going to get some Coke.”

  “Okay,” I nodded at him. “And some ice,” I reminded him.

  I bypassed that particular aid station and kept on running. It did feel warm, though nothing compared to the searing midsummer’s heat I’d experienced during my solo reconnaissance missions through the backcountry and byways of Greece. I’m not sure why the race organizers settled on holding the event the final weekend of September, when Herodotus specifically referenced Pheidippides having departed Athens in early August. There were probably a number of practical considerations that were taken into account. But whatever the case may be, the reality is that running in late September was inevitably cooler than it was when Pheidippides undertook his mission.

  The narrow, two-lane roadway continued paralleling the coastline, sometimes down closer to the water’s edge and other times rising up along the cliffs above. Not much of this section was flat; it was either slightly uphill or slightly downhill, undulating and rolling the entire way. There were far fewer cars passing us now that we’d progressed some 45 miles outside of Athens. The runners had spread out, too. I was now running by myself; there wasn’t another runner to be seen in front of me or behind. There were no aid stations in this section, and my crew had leapfrogged to Corinth, which was still seven or eight miles from here. I was all alone.

  Up ahead, at perhaps 200 or 300 hundred meters, an underpass appeared. It looked as though the road we were running on crossed beneath it. As I drew nearer, it became apparent that the structure was quite dilapidated; the concrete edges along the entrance were crumbling, and there were weeds growing everywhere, even up from the cracking pavement.

  As I entered the archway of the underpass, it suddenly became very dark inside. There were big chunks of concrete strewn across the roadway, and I had to be careful not to trip over them. It looked as though several trucks had tried to cram their way through the structure but were too tall to fit. In their attempt they’d scraped their carriages along the ceiling and caused it to disintegrate and collapse to the ground. I tiptoed and zigzagged around pieces of metal and big chunks of rubble and rebar. When my eyes started to adjust to the darkness, I could see that the interior walls of the underpass were covered in graffiti. It was cool and damp inside the deeper recesses of the structure, and mushrooms and weeds sprouted up between the fissures of fractured concrete, as if nature was preparing to reclaim it.

  As I neared the far side of the underpass, the glare of sunlight from above cast a dark veil across the exit like a black curtain. It was impossible to decipher anything beyond that point, and as I crossed through the shroud and my eyes began attempting to readjust to the brightness, I noticed a car parked up ahead. There was a young man standing next to it, staring at me. Was I about to be mugged?

  I kept running toward him, unsure of my fate, my vision still not fully adjusted to the glaring sunlight. He kept staring at me. My heart began racing, and I started to get that uneasy feeling like something bad was about to happen. The road was narrow, with a cliff on one side and he on the other, so there was no place to escape. I could see that his eyes remained fixed upon me. This wasn’t good. Where were all of the other runners? What was going to happen? Then I noticed he held something in his hand. Was it a knife? A gun? Had I met my destiny?

  All of a sudden I realized he was clutching a copy of my first book, Ultramarathon Man, the Greek version. Whew, was I relieved. The tension drained. Then I felt incredibly humbled.

  “Yasas” (hello), I said to him, now feeling safe. He was a trim lad, young—perhaps in his midtwenties—well groomed and nicely clad in a polo shirt, Bermuda shorts, and Top-Sider shoes. I had snot running down my face and pieces of cured meat stuck between my teeth.

  “Hello, Mr. Karnazes.”

  After he greeted me, he just stood there looking at me in a wide-eyed stare. It was awkward.

  “Would you like me to sign your book?” I finally asked.

  He snapped back to life, “Oh, yes, sorry, do you have time?”

  “Sure.”

  He handed me the book. I could see that his hands were trembling when he did so. The book felt warm and moist from his palms.

  “Do you have a pen?” I asked. “I don’t happen to be carrying one with me at the moment.”

  “Oh, yes, sorry.” He rummaged through his pockets nervously. “Here you go.”

  “That was a joke,” I said, smiling.

  “Oh, yes, sorry, of course it was a joke,” he said nervously. My attempts at humor clearly weren’t hitting their mark.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Ah . . . John.”

  “Yannis?”

  “Oh, yes, sorry, of course, my name is Yannis.”

  I signed Yannis’s book and handed it back to him.

  He thanked me, and then added, “Oh, sorry, would it be okay to take a picture?”

  “Sure, Yannis, that’s fine.”

  “Oh, would it be okay if my girlfriend was in it?”

  Girlfriend? I didn’t see anyone else around. “Sure, that’s fine,” I said. “Where is she?”

  He ran over to the car. “Nicola! Nicola! Ela, ela!”

  A stunning, dark-haired young lady stepped out of the passenger-side door. She had a classic Dorian profile with radiant olive skin, a beautifully sculpted nose, prominent cheekbones, indigo eyes, and full, rosy lips. Her features were timeless, like those of Helen of Troy, whose angelic face is said to have launched a thousand ships.

  She walked over and said hello in a heavy Greek accent. I don’t think she spoke much English, and she was very shy. She was holding a cell phone and handed it to Yannis, who was standing next to me.

  “Let’s put beauty in the middle,” I said to him. They both looked at me blankly.

  “You know—the rose between two thorns.” Neither of them moved. It was clear they had no idea what I was talking about. My attempts at diffusing their nervousness were backfiring, as they now appeared more nervous than ever. It was awkward.

  I moved Nicola in between Yannis and me. “There.”

  “Oh, yes, sorry.” Yannis now understood what I was trying to explain. We scrunched our heads together, and he held out the phone and snapped a few selfies. He immediately started inspecting the photos on the phone’s screen and smiled broadly. I guess he liked what he saw.

  “How did you guys know where to find me?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes, sorry. We’ve been following you.”

  “Yannis, you don’t have to keep saying you’re sorry.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. Sorry.”

  “So where have you been following me from?”

  “From Athens.”

  I almost choked. “From Athens? You mean you’ve been following me this entire time?”

  “Oh, yes, sorry. There are a lot of people waiting in Corinth, so we came here.”

  Corinth was a major checkpoint,
so I figured it would be a busy place. Still, I was quite stunned that they’d followed me for the past 7 hours.

  We stood there for a bit longer in silence. More awkwardness.

  “Hey, listen, I’d love to stick around, but I really should be . . . running along.” It was a pathetic pun and a feeble last-ditch effort to break the ice with some slapstick American jesting.

  They both just stared at me blankly.

  “Get it? Really should be ‘running along . . .’” I raised my eyebrows and tilted my head back and forth a couple times for emphasis.

  They both continued staring at me blankly.

  “‘Running along.’ No?” It was a final desperate attempt to break through.

  “Oh, yes, sorry. I understand,” Yannis said dryly. I think he was sincere, but any element of humor was clearly lost in translation. It was obvious their heads were in a different place than mine.

  I smiled, chuckled at myself, and bid them farewell. They both just stood there waving from the roadside. A hundred feet down the roadway I turned back around, and they were still just standing there, waving.

  I gave them one last wave, giggled, then put my head down and ran off to Corinth.

  Dave and Dean along the Gulf of Salamis

  23

  ROLL CAMERA

  Corinth was once an illustrious Greek city. Home to the Temple of Apollo and the famous agora, it was a flourishing artistic, architectural, and cultural hub in the 5th century BCE. Situated along a narrow isthmus between the Gulf of Corinth to the west and the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea to the east, its positioning offered a strategic defensive advantage along with exceptional views in every direction.

  Unfortunately, Corinth didn’t fare well as time progressed. The city was burned to the ground and looted by the Romans in 146 BCE. Along with the destruction, many of the treasured Corinthian vases were lost or destroyed, and much of the classic Corinthian artwork was either pilfered or defaced. Ironically, it was another Roman, none other than Julius Caesar, who eventually restored the city.

  Then, in 67 CE, the Roman Emperor Nero had an idea to boost trade and improve logistics by cutting a gigantic channel between the two seas on either side of the isthmus. This newly constructed passageway would significantly reduce travel time and increase commerce by shaving some 430 miles off the journey around the Peloponnese. Using a golden spade to start the digging, he commenced construction.

  Nero didn’t live to see the project’s completion. Nor did his children, or his grandchildren, or their grandchildren, for that matter. It wasn’t until 1893 that this engineering marvel was finally completed. Picture this: a 300-foot-deep, 81-foot-wide, sheer vertical parallel cut into solid marble earth and thus connecting the blue waters of both seas. Measuring 4 miles long, it was dug deeply enough to completely avoid the need for locks, even though it connects two massive bodies of water. It is quite an astounding feat of engineering, and quite a remarkable spectacle to behold.

  Crossing a 300-foot-high walkway that bridges the two sides, I arrived at the bustling checkpoint in Corinth in just over 8 hours’ time. Since it is situated at mile 50.22, many runners struggle to make it here within the 9:30 cutoff period (or they struggle so hard getting here they have nothing left to continue making future cutoff times farther along the course). I still wasn’t sure which category I fell into, but I was sure glad to be there.

  Corinth couldn’t have come a moment too soon, either. It was high time to do some serious regrouping, repairing, and refueling. Mentally, I felt light-headed; physically, I felt weak. The heel of my right foot needed attention, and I knew I needed to force myself to eat regardless of my ongoing nausea. Socks needed to be changed and layers of clothing needed to be removed. There was an adequate buffer left within the cutoff time, so I planned to use some of the surplus to gather myself and start afresh.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. A large crowd had assembled awaiting my arrival. People were holding books, posters, magazines, and mementos for me to sign. It was concurrently heartwarming and horrific. There were a number of reporters there, along with TV crews and newscasters. All I wanted was a few peaceful moments to address my foot and choke down some pasteli, yet all I was seeing in front of me was a sea of adoring fans and followers (and family, as I would soon learn).

  They all rushed me at once, simultaneously asking me to sign things, pose for photographs, and meet long-lost aunts, uncles, cousins, and nephews. The reporters cut a swath through the masses and demanded that I conduct interviews with their news stations first. Nearly all of these requests came flooding toward me in Greek, each person talking progressively louder to overshadow the last. It now occurred to me that when Yannis had said there were a lot of people in Corinth waiting, he meant that they were waiting for me.

  And so it began. Someone stuck a Sharpie between my fingers and I was suddenly signing books, flyers, and photos for people I didn’t even know (but who apparently knew me), as well as napkins snatched from nearby restaurants and loose scraps of paper people had grabbed from recycling bins in their frantic rush over to me. I was surrounded three deep, and it was paralyzing and claustrophobic. The energy of everyone all wanting a piece of me at once fed upon itself like an out-of-control wildfire.

  I stood there unable to move, not sure what to do, not sure where to go. I couldn’t think for myself, couldn’t reason, my mind totally preoccupied with trying to decipher the multitude of requests being lobbed my way from every conceivable direction. The deafening noise and commotion was disorienting, and I just stood there in a daze like a puppet, trying to accommodate people as best I could. Truthfully, my mind was on autopilot; not much of anything was registering at the moment. I’d completely lost all sense of time and place, and I just stood there blankly reacting to one person after the next as though in a dream.

  At some point my left forearm was clasped by the strong grip of a hand. It started tugging me away, with some force I might add. People kept following me along as this unknown hand dragged me sideways; all the while I kept signing things with my right hand and smiling for photos as I was being pulled along. This invisible force hauled me some distance and finally plopped me down in a chair. I was still surrounded by people, but now I could see that my crew was there. They asked me if I needed anything, while at the same time I was being peppered with questions from a multitude of news reporters. They all wanted face time and elbowed each other in a scrum, attempting to jockey for position. What had I gotten myself into? All I wanted to do was run the Spartathlon, and suddenly I had media obligations. I’d never signed up for any of this.

  “ROLL CAMERA!” one of the news crew shouted. Next thing I knew three microphones were shoved in my face and a series of rapid-fire questions assailed me like incoming buckshot. I started jabbering incomprehensibly, not sure what else to do. “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah . . .”

  “Oh, that’s beautiful,” one of the reporters said. “Ωραıoς” (beautiful).

  I had absolutely no idea what had just rolled off my tongue, but apparently it was to her liking. Then I felt someone unlacing my right shoelace. I couldn’t see my foot because of all of the microphones and equipment in my face, but I was certain my shoes and socks were being removed. Then someone shouted in my ear, “Do you want me to pop it or just tape it?”

  It was Nikos Kalofyris, another crewmember. Apparently I’d mentioned something about a blister on my heel during the interview, and he’d responded accordingly. An ultrarunner himself, Nikos knew precisely what to do.

  “Oxi, oxi,” I shook my head, motioning with my hand not to worry about it.

  Sure, it would have been nice to properly take care of my foot, but I knew that the hounding would be incessant the entire time. All I had wanted was to get to Corinth, and now all I wanted was to get the hell out of Corinth.

  I couldn’t understand why these people were drawn to me. I was nothing special. We all need heroes, I guess, not so much for what they do as much as for what they do to
us. For these people I’d become a source of optimism; I was a means of hope that somehow, someway they could move closer to their idealized selves. They saw in me something they wanted more of in themselves, and in meeting me they reaffirmed that value and perhaps reignited their passion to get to that place. Ωραıoς.

  Nikos finished putting on a new pair of socks and laced my shoes back up. He slapped a pouch of food in my hand and gave me a fresh bottle of water. He could tell I wanted to leave; I didn’t have to say anything. “Efharisto,” I thanked him and started to get up. Reporters kept interviewing me and people kept asking me to sign stuff, but I just ran away. I had to. I had nothing left to give.

  These sorts of situations usually don’t bother me much. I accept them as part of my duty in trying to be a good ambassador of endurance sports and in trying to be a positive role model in general. But hullabaloo like this is certainly easier to deal with when you’re feeling fresh and at your best, which I presently wasn’t. And today’s particular situation was a bit more excessive than usual. The Greeks were exceptionally passionate people, which was both uplifting and draining. Right now I needed to get into my own head and sort things out. To think, I’d already covered roughly two marathons but still had the equivalent of four more to go. I was feeling pulverized, but my journey had just begun. The Spartathlon was going to test me in ways I’d never been tested before. I liked that.

  There are always ups and downs during an ultramarathon—high points and low points—that is to be expected. It’s entirely unrealistic to think that a race of this duration will go like clockwork, no matter how well trained an athlete is. I was all too aware of this fact. Just as smooth seas do not make skillful sailors, smooth races do not make resilient runners. Still, the challenges of a new experience, such as the odyssey I was now embarked upon, posed unique and unfamiliar obstacles. Dealing with the unknown under the best of circumstances can be trying, but when the mind and body are under severe strain, these situations become even more difficult and imposing.