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The COO (Chief Operating Officer) of 42KJulio Mas, was one of the more than twenty thousand runners who competed in the Athens Marathon on November 12 and has told us in first person about his experience in the oldest and also the most legendary marathon in the world.
I started running about 30 years ago, at a time when the word “” was not used.running”, when at the start of any marathon in Spain there were no more than a thousand runners (and very few women) and when running through any city attracted attention and attracted looks of surprise and strangeness.
I have lost count of the races in which I have defended a number (I do not forget the first, the Volta a Peu València, when I was 14 years old), but I remember each of the marathons that I have run because I have put my soul into all of them.
The marathon is a unique test and I have always believed that it must be run with enormous respect and that, in my opinion, means doing it with the maximum personal ambition and with the determination to exhaust every last gram of strength.
I have completed the 42,195 kilometers 14 times and, fortunately, I have only experienced the disappointment and ingratitude of withdrawal once, in Seville (2014), although that is also part of the greatness of this test. Preparing for a marathon means training for months knowing that On race day you risk everything on one card and you are never safe from an injury, a fall, a stomach problem...
Competing in the Athens marathon, a dream come true after 30 years of running
I made my marathon debut in 2005, in Valencia. Since then this career has been part of my sporting life and also, to a large extent, of my professional life as commercial director of 42K, since our sportswear brand has been and is the technical brand of countless marathons in Spain, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, France...
I have been lucky enough to experience the marathon as a runner in wonderful settings: Valencia (eight times), Barcelona (twice), Paris, Rome and Stockholm. But ever since I fell in love with the marathon, I dreamed of one day competing in the legendary Athens Marathon.
After many years cherishing that dream, finally in 2023 I was able to be at the start of the town of Marathon to face the most historic, the most mythical and, without a doubt, the hardest of the great marathons. I'll tell you my experience in it. 40th Athens Marathon and I encourage you to one day experience firsthand the indescribable sensation of glory that is felt when crossing the finish line at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens.
Athens Marathon, a unique atmosphere
The Athens Marathon It has the weight of history and legend behind it, something that is felt in the atmosphere that exists in the Greek capital in the days before the race. When you exchange glances with other runners in the most touristic places in the city, you realize that you share a mixture of excitement and nervousness, which is logically the result of knowing that you are in a mythical place and that you are going to face a unique marathon.
Athens turns to the marathon and you can breathe marathons throughout the city. It is their big sporting event of the year and they pamper it in a special way. The percentage of foreign participation is very high and that translates into enormous economic income for hotels, restaurants, commerce...
The Athenians experience the celebration of the race with joy and tremendous pride. They feel very lucky to be the origin of the authentic marathon; They like to breastfeed and remember that they are the classic marathon cradle, 'the authentic', as it appears on all the official posters and advertising of the event, and is even engraved on the finisher's medal (see in the photo).
El first Olympic marathon was held in 1896 (one year before the Boston Marathon) on the occasion of the celebration in athens of the first modern Olympic Games.
History tells us that Pierre de Coubertin, who was the creator of the modern Olympic Games with the idea of remembering the Olympic Games of antiquity (held between 776 BC and 393 AD), received the suggestion of doing a long-distance race inspired by legend of the warrior-messenger Pheidippides, who ran from Marathon to Athens to report, just before he died, that the Greeks had defeated the invading Persian army at the Battle of Marathon.
The great atmosphere that exists in Athens is transferred to the spectacular runner's fair that celebrates the test. I have been to numerous important marathon runner fairs and I can assure you that the Athens marathon is one of the ones that impressed me the most. It installs at the Faliro Sports Complex, a grand sports facility that hosted the handball, taekwondo and volleyball competitions during the 2004 Olympic Games.
It is a fair in which you can spend hours and hours visiting stands of countless sports brands of clothing, accessories, gadgets... and in which many other marathons are also exhibited to attract participants, aware of the very high percentage of runners from all corners. of the world that meet in Athens.
An amazing and impeccable organization
Race day starts with a important early morning. You have to set the alarm very early to catch any of the hundreds of buses that take you to the starting line.
The device of hundreds and hundreds of buses that Twenty-something thousand runners are transferred from Athens but also departure in the town Marathon (marathon is the Greek word for fennel, a plant that was abundant in the area), which is found about 40 kilometers (the distance that according to legend Pheidippides traveled in the opposite direction).
From 5:30 in the morning the streets of Athens are abuzz with people and buses. It's a mammoth deployment of buses, perfectly distributed throughout different areas of Athens and with previously established departure times.
I have worked in race organization and I know the difficulties involved in organizing an event for more than twenty thousand people. It is very difficult to imagine the extraordinary complexity of organizing the bus journey from Athens to Marathon for more than twenty thousand people and doing it with such professionalism and in such a fluid manner.
I must admit that I did not expect to find a career with such a professional and efficient organizational level; all, absolutely everythingIs perfectly organized so that around 7 in the morning, two hours before departure, all participants are already in the town of Marathon.
Another example of perfect organization is the wardrobe that is installed at the exit. A huge team of people from the organization is in charge of collecting the bags and backpacks from the participants and they are immediately transported by trucks to the finish line in Athens, where a multitude of volunteers classify them by number to facilitate collection after the test.
The Marathon start, a moment of great emotion, excitement and nerves
We arrived at the town of Marathon at 7 in the morning and there are still two hours until departure. He atmosphere in Marathon It is spectacular: a mix of emotion, excitement and nerves. And that feeling increases as the departure time approaches. There is hardly any audience, but it is not missed because the animation of the test is responsible for generating enormous expectation and creating an atmosphere of great emotion.
I had the opportunity to talk to runners of different nationalities who were also making their debut in the race, most of them with many marathons under their belts, and all of them admitted feeling a special emotion, a mix of feelings that they had not experienced at the start of other big marathons.
When the time of departure is close, the organization's animation does not stop encouraging the participants. The moments before departure make your hair stand on end.
A unique route due to its hardness and demand
I had thoroughly studied the route and knew that I was facing a complicated and very demanding route. So it was. Without a doubt, it has been the hardest marathon I have ever run.
The first 10 kilometers are flat and they are completed easily, but from there the real Athens marathon begins. I remember going from the start behind two Greek runners who, upon reaching kilometer 10, high-fived each other and wished each other luck; They knew, probably because they were not beginners like me, at what exact moment they had to start gritting their teeth to face the race.
When you leave kilometer 10 behind, the road heads towards the sky. Until kilometer 31 the terrain is constantly ascending, with the occasional short section of descent that deceptively allows you to recover (keep a rhythm or a controlled pulse becomes impossible task). There are five thousand especially hard, from the 26th to the 31st, with very demanding ramps that require correct dosage of forces because it is very easy to make the mistake of forcing and pay dearly for it later.
From kilometer 32 the tour is softens because the descent towards Athens begins, but the difficulties are not over. To face the descent you have to be very strong quadriceps because otherwise you can have a very bad time in the last ten kilometers.
Between 34 and 36, you begin to notice very significant muscle fatigue, which is the result of so many kilometers of climbing and the change of support when running that requires you to make the descent. At that point in the race is when you are very grateful for having done specific strength work for this test.
The last kilometers can be tortuous, very tortuous, without adequate muscle preparation. At the Athens marathon the famous wall may be higher and more dangerous than in any other 42 kilometer race.
The Athens Marathon requires special preparation
The route approaches the 400 meters of accumulated positive slope and 80% of that climb is concentrated between kilometers 10 and 31. It is a marathon in which it's very difficult to pick up the pace, except in the first ten kilometers. There are sections of the route with very hard ramps that require a special level of physical and psychological preparation.
In my opinion, the Athens marathon It cannot be faced with the same preparation strategy as for a flat marathon. like, for example, Valencia or Seville. Without a doubt, you have to arrive with a very significant volume of kilometers in your legs, but I dare say that it may not be enough to be guaranteed of crossing the finish line in Athens. This race requires special muscle strength preparation and also extensive previous experience in marathon distance.
Without very well-planned strength work focused on the hardness of this race, the Athens marathon cannot be tackled safely. If you have any muscular weakness, it can be very difficult to finish.
Emotion overflows upon arrival at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens
If I had to stay with an indelible memory of the Athens marathon, is without a doubt The entrance to the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens.
At kilometer 42 there is a curve that places you in front of the entrance straight to the stadium. At that moment the senses are not able to process everything you see and hear. The emotion overflows. Suddenly you see yourself running inside the most legendary stadium in sport. The stands are very high and are full of people applauding, cheering, shouting... You look up and feel overwhelmed with the spectacle. It doesn't matter how you imagined that moment: reality exceeds any expectations.
Panathenaic Stadium also known as the Kallimarmaro (what in Greek means "beautiful marble" because it is built with white marble), in 1896 it hosted the first edition of the Modern Olympic Games after having been rebuilt on the remains of an ancient stadium dating back to 329 BC
It is located in the center of Athens and is reached after a journey of about 2 incredible kilometers through the streets of the city. The number of people waiting in Athens for the arrival of the participants is incalculable. The emotion felt in those two kilometers neutralizes any feeling of tiredness, any discomfort. Everything you have suffered is compensated. Is the warmth of the Athenian public is impressive and how they encourage you to fly you to the entrance to the stadium.
Athens is a marathon different from the rest of the big marathons
The Athens Marathon It is different from the rest of the big marathons in many things. Has numerous features that make it unique and some of them, in my opinion, reinforce their uniqueness and authenticity.
A priori it may seem less attractive because it has a series of “drawbacks” that do not occur in other large marathons: the huge early morning on race day, trip of almost an hour to Marathon, a tour with more than 20 kilometers of ascending terrain (the longest uphill hill in a marathon race) or run without an audience for most of the race.
In any large marathon, the presence of the public throughout the entire route is common, but in the Athens marathon this is not the case. There is an audience at the beginning, at the start of Marathon, but as soon as you leave this town and head towards Athens the race runs along a kind of national highway without public, except when passing through towns like Nea Makri, Rafina, Pikermi... in which all the inhabitants take to the streets to cheer with great enthusiasm, offering olive twigs as a way of wishing good luck, dancing Shirtaki, which is the Greek popular dance par excellence …
The public concentrates in the towns through which the race passes and at the end, in Athens, but there are almost 80 percent of the route in which one runs without public. Perhaps that may seem strange or be an inconvenience for someone used to running marathons with animation at every kilometer and with the presence of the public throughout the route; It seems to me that running alone for so many kilometers gives this race a special appeal.
The Athens Marathon forces you to face the true loneliness of the marathon runner, the famous distance runner loneliness. The marathon is a sporting event that requires mental strength and in a course like the Athens Marathon you test your mental strength like in no other marathon, at least like in no other that I have run.
The times of Abel Antón and Martín Fiz in the 1997 World Cup, a feat
After having run the Athens marathon and having suffered its hardness and demands, I consider the times set by Abel Antón and Martín Fiz in the 1997 Athens World Championships a true feat, 2h 13m 16s and 2h 13m 21s, when they became champion and runner-up of the marathon world.
The records of Antón and Fiz in that world cup they are amazing. When you know the route you give much more value to what they did. It is a brutally demanding leg-breaking route. It seems almost science fiction to me to think about running at such high paces on a route like the Athens Marathon.
In all my participations in marathons I had managed to be sub 3 hours (except in Stockholm in 2018) and with that ambition I started the Marathon, but the race put me in my place. In the end I stopped the clock at 3h 09m, a time that I celebrate with the same enthusiasm as any of my best times (2h37m and 2h42m in Valencia 2013 and Valencia 2012, respectively).
I have fulfilled a dream. I have crossed off what has always been the marathon par excellence for me from my bucket list. I have lived the most exciting finish line of my life and i have accompanied by two great friends, Borja and Carles, to whom I am united by many races and many kilometers run, but from now on, we are also united by having lived together the experience of the great Athens marathon, the authentic one.
Two other great friends, José Luis and Chema, should have also experienced it, but due to different personal circumstances they could not. I hope and wish that one day we can form the five, as planned in 2023, at the Marathon starting line and face together the 42,195 kilometers with the most history. I trust that life will allow me to once again enjoy the unique experience of running into the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens.
I heartily encourage any runner who loves the marathon to dream of competing in the Athens Marathon sometime in their life.
Text to 42K of :
July Mas
COO of 42K
Julio Más Lajara is the COO (Chief Operating Officer) of 42K. She is passionate about running (both asphalt and mountain) and cycling. He has run 14 marathons and countless long-distance cycling events. He fulfilled his dream of being an ironman in Regesburg (Germany).
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