Just as I was fully realizing the depth of my connection to this place, a large diesel truck came barreling down the highway straight for me, interrupting my reflections and thrusting me back into the present-day reality of the modern Spartathlon. It was a stark reminder that while some things hadn’t changed since ancient times, other things had. I veered off to the side of the road to avoid being hit by this 18-wheeled monstrosity as it roared past in an ear-splitting thunder.
Perhaps the only redeeming factor of having to run down these heavily trafficked roadways was that the loud roar of an approaching vehicle’s engine could always be heard well in advance, thus providing sufficient notice that danger was fast approaching. There were no stealthy electric vehicles that snuck up on you without audible forewarning. Few Teslas traversed these byways (or one, even).
As the truck chugged past, it kicked up a small hailstorm of throat-choking particulates into the surrounding atmosphere, and I got a hardy taste of fresh morning air (yes, I’m being facetious). However, such was an unpleasant necessity for enduring the Spartathlon. Given that the race took place mostly on tarmac, there was no way to avoid these disagreeable encounters; they were all part of the challenge. I wasn’t made for such accosting, but then again, what human was? We had created a world reliant on commerce for our very survival, and these modern machines were the muscles that powered such trade. In some ways we runners of the Spartathlon didn’t seem right for this world. We were the ancient messengers that would have carried critical information, the force that would have driven trade between distant populations over mountains and valleys. We belonged to a place and time 2,500 years in the past.
Upward crept the sun, first cracking the eastern horizon and then moving higher into the sky. Temperatures warmed quickly, the cool predawn mist replaced by a muggy humidity that hung stagnant in the motionless air. Like most runners’, my body glinted with a salty residue that abraded the flesh wherever fabric contacted skin. Much of enduring an ultramarathon is about how one manages and deals with minor miseries, and chafing is one unavoidable unpleasantness most athletes simply learn to bear. While it isn’t severe enough to end a run, it is another contributing factor added to the expanding list of distresses. Over time, these minor maladies begin to exact a toll.
Warmer the day evolved. Brighter the sky shone, and more intense the piercing rays of the Southern Mediterranean sun became. At several checkpoints along the way I grabbed a cupful of water, managing to take small sips as I moved along, sometimes dumping the entire thing over my head. More runners appeared. Some sat slumped and motionless in chairs or were lying in cots at the aid stations, while others hobbled along, their limbs looking anesthetized as if half dead. A few of them tried to talk to me in labored, broken English. The gist of their message was a familiar one; they had read one of my books and were attempting to express their gratitude. Many of the themes in my writing are identifiable to any runner, regardless of the language one speaks, the color of one’s skin, or the god one worships. This sacred brother- and sisterhood between runners is a bond we share. Although I had never met any of these fellow runners, they knew me, knew my family, knew of my struggles and joys. They intimately related to my story because it was also their story. Regardless of what place it was we occupied in this world, we shared the same emotions and experiences, and this commonality united us in a way that words could never adequately convey. Not even in my books.
The day wore on and the miles piled up, the bright glare of the sun distorting the landscape in a rippling mirage. The course seemed to go on and on endlessly, slowly pounding me into submission and demanding that I go to some deeper place to find the resolve needed to continue forging onward. To finish the Spartathlon, you must give yourself up to it entirely. The pain had become so intense that I thought I would collapse, and then it went away . . .
The ancient Greek theologian Plotinus observed that when bodily pain seems beyond endurance, it can lead to a spiritual cleansing that obliterates the face of time until whole eons fall away like dead leaves from a tree. Those who have moved beyond the physical confines of pain have left the flesh and entered the illimitable realm of the spirit. I’d been running for more than 26 hours by this point, and my body was slowly moving beyond fatigue and exhaustion into a meditative transcendence. Step by step, I was departing from my corporeal body, losing my sense of identity, and slipping further into the province of spirit. It was a most glorious dismantling of self. My feet still clipped along, my arms still swung back and forth, and my chest still heaved, but my mind had largely relinquished jurisdiction. I was at once both vulnerable and powerful, a physical presence moving through this earth, though largely defenseless and exposed. An ultramarathon is a way to engage intimately with the world and at the same time escape from it.
The blasting of a car horn jolted me back to reality.
“Focus, Karnazes! Focus!” I told myself, a shot of adrenaline coursing through my veins. Wandering into oncoming traffic is never a good idea, especially when your mind is someplace else.
The Spartathlon was at once magnificent and repulsive. For every breathtaking Hellenic panorama and ebullient checkpoint volunteer came a contrasting dose of vile hideousness, each momentous high eventually eviscerated by a seemingly bottomless low. Why do men sail such seas, I wondered? Why not stay safely moored inside the harbor, sheltered from the storm? No one was forcing us at gunpoint to be out there, so why put ourselves through such intense suffering? The answer is that we Spartathletes seek to unlock a gateway that carries us deeper into the mysterious underworld of the human psyche, a place where great adventures await, yet shadowy dangers lurk. The battle is always within, and the Spartathlon provides a rare portal into oneself, a revealing glimpse at our true nature. Suffering provides a road to truth. This is where life is lived to its fullest, bare and susceptible yet completely engaged and whole, navigating the course when one is able and being carried by the tides when one is not. As the great explorer Marco Polo noted, the bold may not live forever, but the timid do not live at all. It is terrifying to let yourself go so completely, pushing your mind and body so far that virtually all control is lost. Yet it is also purifying. Confronting your fears helps makes you holy. That is why we ran the Spartathlon.
Tegea was once an important city in the Peloponnese, home to many writers, historians, and lyric poets, with an impressive stadium and a spectacular theater constructed entirely of brilliant white marble. My crew was there, waiting for me, though there was little they could offer. I sat with them for a moment, massaging my throbbing temples once again. More books appeared before me and I signed them. People crouched next to me to snap selfies. I smiled, though rather emptily, incapable of responding to the muffled noise and the flashes of light exploding in my face, staring blankly ahead like a deer caught in headlights.
Tegea sat 121 miles from the start. Word came to me that the American ultrarunning champion Jon Olsen had succumbed to heel problems and stomach issues and had dropped out. Jon was clearly no stranger to overcoming obstacles and dealing with adversity; it was thus a sobering reminder that even an athlete of extraordinary caliber could be stopped by this race. Learning his fate only reinforced the fact that absolutely no certainty exists with the Spartathlon, no givens or foregone conclusions can be drawn, regardless of one’s skill. Failure is a very real possibility. I wondered how Dave was faring. Had he found his Coke and ice?
A tap on the shoulder disrupted my introspection. “Would you like some gum?” An older gentleman stood above me, and I nodded my head in affirmation. He handed me a piece. I popped it in my mouth and started to chew.
“Mastic?” I looked at him, “This is mastic, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is.”
Harvested from a resin secreted by the ancient mastic tree, it tastes bitter at first, but after some chewing releases a refreshing, pine-cedar flavor. Mastic is said to have medicinal properties and grows on the southern side of the remote Greek island of Chios. I
hadn’t had a piece since I was an altar boy at Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Church, where the priests used to chew mastic to moisturize their mouths prior to delivering a sermon. We all knew where they kept their private stash, in a small bowl behind the epitafio, and we would occasionally sneak a piece ourselves. Having a piece of mastic now tasted good, rejuvenating both for the mouth and for the soul.
“How do you feel?” the man asked.
“Not so good. It’s been rough going, and it’s sure to get rougher.”
“Will you make it?”
“I’m not sure, but if I don’t, they’ll be carrying me off on a stretcher.”
“Attaboy! You make us proud, Kostas. Remember the words of Winston Churchill?”
“Won’t ever forget ’em.”
Upon learning of Greek battle victories over the Germans despite insuperable odds, Churchill once quipped, “Hence, we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks.”
This had not been my best race. Far from it. I wouldn’t be setting any records or achieving any of my personal goals, either. But what mattered most now was finishing what I’d started. I had to make it to Sparta.
Sure, there were other competitors in the race and the clock was ticking, but inevitably an ultramarathon is not a race against others or against a stopwatch; it is a match against oneself, a contest of you versus you. I knew my body well, knew how hard I could push it without going over the edge, because I’d pushed myself over the edge before. For it is only in knowing our limits that we can move beyond them, and I was adept at toeing that fine line between consciousness and collapse. At least I thought I was, just as every drunk believes he can drive a car.
At this juncture the paradigm had shifted from worrying about race results to merely getting the job done. I hadn’t come here to start the race, but to finish it. As Aristotle once said, “Well begun is half done.” Downshifting into a death march would be necessary if I were to harbor any hope of reaching the finish line. “Do what you can,” Coach Wooden had counseled me. Shuffle to the best of your ability, I told myself, but do not stop. This is what it would take to reach Sparta, and I would do that which was necessary. When the music changes, so must the dance.
“I won’t give up without a fight,” I told the giver of mastic. “And now that battle must be fought.”
I stood up, shook myself off, and prepared to give it everything I had, just as Pheidippides surely did. Go Greek or go home, even if that means in a body bag.
He looked at me amusingly. “From your lips to God’s ears,” he said.
Aid station sponge bath
28
THE TIDES THROUGH WHICH WE MOVE
If you want to run, run a mile. If you want to experience a different life, run a marathon. If you want to talk to God, run an ultra. Five miles from Tegea, that conversation with God initiated. It began when the world took on a nebulous, pixilated quality. The surrounding landscape and fields of horta undulated to and fro like seaweed gently swaying in an ocean current. There was a shrill ringing in my ears like the high-pitched sound of an electrical wire, and it eventually drowned out all background noise and cast me inward, as if concealed within my own cocoon. Sensations and thoughts disappeared, bodily proprioception abated into thin air until little, if any, remained. I felt oddly removed—not present—as though held in an episodic déjà vu that wouldn’t take place until sometime in the future.
Events unfolded before me, though I was strangely unaffected by them. I simply flowed down the road perceiving the occurrences as they happened, and that was all. Gone was the filter of ego, that internal voice which is perpetually evaluating situations as to how they might impact the self. For this is how we live, is it not? Are we not constantly processing and analyzing incoming observations and episodes for the effect they have upon us? Is what’s happening positive for me, or negative? we question. Is what I’m seeing, hearing, or feeling potentially helpful, or harmful? Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, the ego is incessantly scrutinizing events to evaluate the consequences they have upon us. Perhaps this is an evolutionary adaptation, but we are instinctually programmed for self-preservation.
But at this moment of time all of that fell away; there was no such appraisal taking place any longer. And, in a mysterious sort of way, it was freeing. I was liberated from the self, released from the burden of thought and worry, at one with the universe and in synchronicity with the world, simply floating along through space and time, detached from the unbearable heaviness of being.
Slipping deeper into this fuzzy state of corporeal disconnection, a warm, flush feeling rushed over me. And then I noticed something unexplainable on the earth below. Initially the vision was hazy and formless, but as I peered more intently at the image below me, it began to materialize and take shape. There was a runner down there. I could see the top of his head, and I could watch as his hair blew backward in the wind. I observed his arms pumping like pistons and could see the front of his left foot and then the front of his right foot jutting outward with each forward stride.
The harder I peered, the more this form galvanized, yet my vantage point was steadily drifting upward and away from this animated emoji jogging below me. Higher and higher I rose into the sky, as if I were being lifted in a hot air balloon, the strutting stick man below becoming increasingly diminutive the farther my viewpoint elevated skyward. The higher I rose, the broader the perspective of the landscape expanded until I could eventually see the entire region of countryside all around. Then it occurred to me that this place looked vaguely familiar, as if I’d been there before. I must have been seated in a helicopter, or riding in an airship.
Yet something seemed strangely amiss with the picture, too. Something just wasn’t right. I contemplated the scene, mentally deliberating what was going on, mulling over the illogicality of it all. But my mind seemed that of a child and could not form a rational understanding of the situation. There was this gnawing feeling in my gut that I was somehow more involved in the scenario than it appeared, but I could not comprehend how.
Then it struck me. That runner down below me was me.
I’d never had an out-of-body experience (OBE) before. Truthfully, I thought this to be the domain of mystics and clairvoyants, those who practiced intense meditation or who experimented with hallucinogenic drugs. I’ve since read reports of athletes engaged in extreme physical exertion—high-altitude climbing, deep-sea diving, endurance cycling—experiencing sensations of levitation. However, slight feelings of floating are one thing. Actually perceiving your body’s location from a remote vantage point is a far greater magnitude of departure.
Autoscopy, as it is known, comes from the ancient Greek αύτóς (self) and σκοπός (watcher), and the term refers to the phenomenon in which an individual, while believing himself to be awake, sees his body’s position from outside of his body. The impression of seeing the world from an elevated visuo-spatial viewpoint or extracorporeal perspective is most frequently observed in near-death experiences, in hospitalized victims suffering from traumatic medical emergencies or in those individuals with life-threatening illnesses.
While I remember most of the Spartathlon vividly, I have no recollection of certain segments along this stretch of the course, as though entire chunks of data were wiped from my mind or were never recorded in the first place. Sports psychologists talk about the importance of positive self-talk, but what happens when the voice inside your head goes silent? The noise and chatter had gone quiet within, and I’d slipped into some bizarre deeper state of being. I don’t think I was dead during that episode, though I wasn’t fully alive, either. I was somewhere in between. It wasn’t a markedly unpleasant experience, nor was it a resoundingly pleasant one. It just was. I can only articulate these things after the fact, when I possess the cognitive reasoning to reflect on the occurrence. At the moment in time, my mind seems to be unplugged and there is only a state of quiet nothingness.
Back on the
Spartathlon route, the course had steadily climbed to an elevation nearly that of Bey’s Ladder—some 3,200 feet—high above Tegea, though I don’t remember any of it. It’s all gone, removed. We passed through the small townships of Kamari and Manthirea, where the paved road twisted and turned through an evergreen landscape, though I scarcely remember any of that, either. But now, under a blazing sun, as I began the long descent into the Eurotas Valley, flickers of comprehension came bursting through periodically, like bright glimmers of luminosity popping off a crackling sparkler. Dimitris reminded me I hadn’t put anything in my mouth in a long time (I heard his voice, at least, but don’t remember seeing him). Cars honked as they drove past, people waving and hollering out the windows, checkpoints appeared and then disappeared. Sometimes I was keenly aware of my surroundings; other times I was not. I’d run 150 miles and was wholly consumed by the desire to will myself across that finish line.
There came a point where I found it almost impossible to put one foot in front of the other, and that’s when everything that mattered most in my life became clear. I was there because I had to be. It was my destiny, my calling. In so many ways these were the most glorious footsteps of my life, yet in other ways they were the most unrelenting grunt work I’d ever undertaken, and a damn tough way to make a living. Like Greece itself, the Spartathlon had been a dichotomous experience.
The Road to Sparta Page 21