Endurance and Insight: My Athens Marathon Journey and Beyond

It’s been a while since I participated in person in a running event, I almost forgot how that is – the Athens Marathon on 12th of November was a great opportunity to enjoy that feeling once more. Before the pandemic, I used to participate in least 2-3 running events per year, keeping them as objectives for my training and also allowing me to enjoy the visit in other cities. During and after the pandemic, I kept on running, but not registered in public events .. I think it was more my reluctance to commit and exit the confort zone of my routine – I kept on saying “it’s just running, why should I go to race somewhere just to run?”

Early summer I decided that I need another objective to drive my running efforts and registered to the Athens Marathon, the 40th edition – it allowed me enough time from July until mid November to prepare. One of the drivers was the wear on my motivation to run longer, the habit was still there but the average distance wasn’t .. I was becoming a bit lazy. So I said I need a boost – like registering to a race where I’d love to be part of the energetic crowd running there.

Last Sunday, on 12th of November, the 40th edition of Athens Marathon – the Authentic – happened and I loved to participate – we had amazing supporters, great runners and a race record. This year a record number of people registered to start the race in Marathon – 20322 – beating the previous record from 2019 and Kenya’s Edwin Kiptoo won in 2:10:34 – a new course record.

For me the race had 3 parts (not particularly because of my strategy) – the first 25km, the next 13km and the last 4km.

The first phase (25km) I had a constant performance, following my prescribed Stryd running power target (a bit above, because I thought I know better), but after the 25th km I felt that I’m not longer motivated to run/jog from the hydration stop – it was sunny and warm and I thought that a bit of power walking would be a better approach to alternate the running.. the last 4km I reminded why I came there and restarted to run until the Panathenaic Stadium (where an enthusiastic crowd encouraged every runner).

When I look at Garmin’s stamina measurement (it’s just numbers .. based on other numbers), my gas tank was empty at 32nd km, which I proved it wasn’t the case – nonetheless, it proved the fact that the race was difficult for me, a bit above my preparation.

The course is hilly, but it just doesn’t allow top performers to have the world records – for the rest, with the right preparation you can hit your PB. It wasn’t my case 🙂

My Garmin Fenix 7X had some challenges with it’s altimeter on some areas of the course – I don’t see any reasons – and registered this way an (abnormal) ascent of 910m and descent of 848m – but the reality stays – if you want to prepare for this race in Athens, you need to test and improve your stamina with some hills.

My preparation didn’t include too much hills and any substitutes I tried didn’t work well apparently.

Regarding the training period, that has similarly to the race three phases:

• I started with Steve Palladino’s Stryd marathon plan, which worked fine until I had a Covid episode and I couldn’t run for more than a week. That affected my Stryd Critical Power and apparently I couldn’t “resurrect” fast the value to get closer to what was before (I moved from 317W to 250W). After a failed attempt to retest for a higher value of CP, I had to accept that the plan with the new lower CP doesn’t work for me and switch to a different approach.
• The next period was a HR based plan, taking into consideration the post Covid effects and that worked reasonably well, but I felt like the long runs aren’t long enough (the longest was 26km) for the marathon
• The last 5 weeks, I used an older 80/20 marathon plan from Matt Fitzgerald which prescribed a bit more effort and it helped but still I wasn’t determined enough to hit the prescribed 35km runs, jumping from my usual 20-25km range – and that is one of the lessons learnt of this campaign – you need to be consistent.

Looking back, even though the result 4:56:39 was 26 minutes away from the 4:30:00 I would have hoped, I’m happy that I registered and learned so many things in the process. Being there with so many people happy to run was so energising that I already registered for the next event in March 2024. Also, looking at the period 1 July – 12 November, the motivation to prepare for this event helped me to run 1012km, with weekly averages above the regular value in the first half of the year.

Besides the technicalities of the equipment used (I constantly switched between Garmin Fenix 7X and the Apple Watch Ultra) and platforms (Stryd, FinalSurge, Training Peaks), the most important aspect of this journey was the autodiscipline and the focus on doing, rather than the result itself. It’s more about the process than the objective itself – that was one of the comments I recently had with a friend, when discussing about this race. This doesn’t take away the importance of the objective, but I’d look at the objective as being an anchor for best practices you learn and keep with you for much longer than the project you’re involved in.

I learned a lot during those months about my capacity to focus and juggle with tasks, because in the last 5 weeks this race preparation overlapped with learning for the PMI Project Management Professional exam. The intertwined preparation tracks were for me an opportunity to reflect on how well I focus under stress, how well I can organise my day and work and how well the static learning activity can go with the running sessions early in the day. With the PMP exam I was apparently better equipped (my studying habits are better trained), passing the exam with high marks on all areas (I received the result in the early hours of the race day to boost my mood).

Looking back, I realise that the greatest achievement is actually the commitment towards a goal and the process you’re able to define and perfect while executing, learning from your mistakes and reactions – most of the time, the destination only serves as a guide for the journey, which becomes more insightful this way.

This marathon was more than a test of physical stamina; it was a journey of personal growth. As I prepare for my next event in March 2024, I carry with me the lessons learned and the memories of a community united by the love of running.

With that, enjoy running, enjoy learning!