Athens in 2023

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Before the race

As part of the celebrations of my 60th birthday, my wife and I travelled to Europe, to Spain and Greece more specifically.

We didn't have a lot of time in Athens, so we didn't do a lot of sightseeing.

Our hotel (Mirame) was fantastic! A small, unassuming place, but with a lot of charm. The breakfast was more than we could expect:

No trip to Athens is complete without a visit to the Parthenon:

Inside the Acropolis museum they had an Acropolis made of lego:

Getting the bib for my race was a nightmare, because the subway station near the expo had absolutely no signage, we did  not know where to go. We had to end up taking a taxi to get there on time:

We also visited the national archeological museum. It was disappointing as half the place was closed. In 2013 we spent hours in there, there was so much interesting stuff. This time, after less than an hour and a half we were out of there:

Race Day

The mandatory selfie before leaving the hotel:

A bus took me to the city of Marathon, where the race starts. Everybody wanted to take a picture under the sign:

Here is a panoramic picture of the stadium:

The start line that we would be crossing after 9 am:

There are twelve corrals marked by a big banner. I thought that the banner indicated the beginning of the group, but I soon found out that it indicated the end, I was at the wrong corral when I took this picture:

I had to jump over a fence to get to my starting corral...

Anyway, I got to my group and around 9h20 am we got out. 

There was always a lot of people around me. With close to 20K participants, this is one of the biggest crowds I was ever part of in a race.

Back in 2013 I did this race, it was hot, it took me five hours and a half.

Today it was warmer than what I like to have for a marathon, but much better than ten years ago, I did not suffer as much.

But a marathon is a marathon, we always suffer, there is no way to run 42 kilometers and not suffer quite a bit.

After four hours and a half I crossed the finish line inside the Panathenaic stadium:

My official time was 4h30m10s, my fourth best for the distance. I'm getting better at this, I think.

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