It all took place this past Sunday, Nov. 6th. Me and Michelle and our 3 cheerleaders (Steven, Mike, and Chris) met up in Athens last Friday for fun, food, sightseeing, and running. We spent the first day getting our race numbers and all the free goodies (t-shirts, towels, key chains, granola bars, bag, etc.). Then we took it easy and ate some delicious food. Saturday we took a two hour trip out of Athens to go see Poseidon's Temple along the coast. Since we were all on tight budgets we didn't pay the 6 Euro to get in to see some old rocks and instead hiked around and went for a swim in the sea. We didn't do much afterwards because Michelle and I had to rest our feet in preparation for the next day. We weren't supposed to be on our feet, much less running, but as we were wondering around Athens Michelle all of a sudden screamed and took off in a dead sprint as soon as spotted Starbucks 3 miles. I think she has a honing device that lets her know when one is in a 10 mile radius. So we all satisfied our Starbucks/coffee cravings that we have had for the past year. After Michelle had her hit of coffee we left the boys on their own so we could go rest our legs and get a good nights sleep.
The amazing thing about being in Greece is that it is the WEST. Everything exists here that exists in America and not in Moldova. And what really makes this true is the food selection. We had read in the Lonely Planet Athens book that there existed a noodle bar somewhere in the city that did take out. We were on a mission. And what happy girls we were as we were sitting in our hotel room watching a movie in English and eating Thai food out of a take out carton with chopsticks. I think this was one of the highlights of my trip...well, along with eating at Subway, drinking Starbucks, having a slice of cheesecake, and eating a huge juicy cheeseburger with fries. So Sunday morning came quickly. We set the alarm for 5:30 so we could make it to the finish line by 6:30 to take buses to the start line to begin the race at 9am. The marathon started in the town of Marathon and we ran all the way into the stadium in Athens. I was a little disappointed because the route wasn't that great. I was expecting amazing scenery but got strip malls and gas stations instead. But hey, I can say I ran the Original marathon. The route was tough. It as pretty flat with some "nice" hills in the middle and the last 12KM was all down hill. I had a good pace the first half of the marathon until I really started to feel my foot injury that I got about a month ago. It is tough running on pavement for 26.2 miles. But I finished and ran across the finish line! Mike, Steven, and Chris were near the end of the route cheering for us and taking pictures of us. It was an amazing feeling to run across that finish line. I was laughing, and I was crying. They gave us all medals and a huge bag of bottled drinks to rehydrate. I had a huge high and couldn't stop smiling the rest of the day, especially since I knew we could eat whatever we wanted for the rest of the day and the next couple days.
PS....for more photos go to www.marathon-photos.com, click on the link to photos, and type my bib number in: 8189
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