Friends: The one with the cat

I had the pleasure of running in Greece last week. 

Wow. Let’s pick that sentence apart a bit. 

First, pleasure and running in the same sentence?  It wouldn’t have occurred to me to put those two words even remotely near each other last month when, fourteen weeks into twenty weeks of  preparation I hit the “running is stupid” phase of my marathon training and started resenting every second of running, ellipting, rowing that has gone into gearing up for this latest ridiculousness.  

Then there’s the Greece part. Pinch me! I just spent almost two weeks in the land of Homer, Socrates, and wonder of wonders that greatest Greek of all, Pheidippides.  My Brooks Adrenalines possibly ran where he ran. My shoes, his bare feet maybe even shared a pebble or five.  Wow. 

If you’re not a marathoner, you might not know who this Pheidippides is and why he matters. If you are a marathoner, you’ve likely heard the story at least once. 

Pheidippides is Greek god-like in the world of distance running. The inspiration for not only the ancient marathon, but our modern race as well,  Pheidippides was a speedy messenger who became legend around 490 B.C., when he ran from the town of Marathon to Athens, about twenty miles away, to deliver news of a military victory against the Persians in the Battle of Marathon.  

After delivering his final message, the poor guy uttered these words: “Joy to you.” Then he dropped dead.  Modern day marathoners think this ending is supremely funny.  

There’s more to the story of course. He likely ran farther than today’s measly 26.2 mile race distance.  Some sources say he ran to and from Marathon a couple of times over several days with no rest whatsoever.  Also, he had no Gatorade, Body Glide, Gu, or fans cheering him on with “Worst Parade Ever,” “Shortcut over here,”  “Why do the cute ones always run away” (a personal favorite)  posters.  So he was probably super dehydrated and maybe a little fatigued by the time he dropped dead.  Plus, I can’t even begin to imagine the blisters and chafing. 

Marathoner humor.

 

We were in Athens at the start and end of our trip. Every morning in Athens, I jogged along the Aegean, on a beat-up sidewalk that also bordered a commuter rail and beyond that a busy roadway. I’d pretend the roar of traffic was the sound of the sea. When I wasn’t hopping over cracks and potholes – just like at home, I’d remind myself I was in Greece by focusing on the turquoise water to the west and the misty islands on the horizon, or on the sandy scrub brush hills that rose to the east, past the masses of hotels and apartment buildings. 

For the middle part of the trip, we were on the island of Crete at a resort on the Aegean Sea. The Fodele Beach Resort is a fantasy land of pastel-and-bright-white buildings, off a twisting main road and built into the side of a hill. Hill on Crete equals mountain in Mass.   

Beautiful, but tough for running. Excellent if you love everything else in life, including baklava which is plentiful and free. 

I was worried about keeping on track with my marathon training because there didn't seem to be anywhere to run. I tried out the resort “fitness center,” which turned out to be a mirrored, moldy room with only one piece of cardio equipment, an ancient treadmill.   

My first day at the resort, I ran three miles on that shaking dinosaur, the ligaments and tendons in my knees and feet screaming with every wobbly step I took. Three boys about ten years old – German I think, stood at my elbow the entire thirty minutes. They wanted a turn on the machine and I guess thought if they stared me down they could goad me into ending my run early.  As if. 

Exactly.

I exited the treadmill panicking a little and not just because I looked like crap in every single one of the three thousand reflections staring back at me.  I had a marathon to train for, but I knew there was no way I could get back on that vicious ankle-breaker. What to do? 

I couldn’t risk training on the one and only supremely narrow roadway, not just because it was unfamiliar territory. A few days earlier in Athens, on the crazy thoroughfare directly in front of our hotel, a woman attempting to cross the three busy lanes was hit and killed. The monster driver didn’t even bother to stop.  

I picture weary Pheidippides, replaying in his head all the battle slaughter he’d witnessed, maybe while stopping for a second in the shade of an olive tree to wipe his brow. Maybe as he thought about the tremendous loss of life, he shivered a little, just like I did that morning in the hotel lobby when I heard the news of the accident. Maybe, like me, he thought, “What is this world coming to?”

    

I opted for the safety of the pathways in and around the hotel compound, and spent day after day running up steep stairways, down driveway-distance paths, out to a quiet cove and back, again and again. I’d see the same tourists every morning, heading to the all-you-can-eat feeding fest that began in the main building each morning at seven and ended every night at 9:30. I’d nod to fellow workshop participants out for morning walks, exchange nods with other joggers sharing the same narrow trails.  

Each time I reached the tippity-top of the resort property, I stopped to view the sparkling Aegean far below, my lungs aching, legs eager and electric. I marveled at the twists and turns I’d taken over the years that brought me to this ridiculously beautiful place. I wondered about fate, and where this new grad school adventure would bring me. Then I’d start my descent, carefully picking my way because steep declines can ruin your legs. I waved to workers in lemon groves, exchanged smiles with the guard house cutie who raised the resort road gate for me each morning.  I bowed my head in respect toward ancient men out for morning shuffles and kerchiefed old women watering plants and sweeping stoops. 

 

Each morning at the flat bottom of the hill, just before a public beach, I passed a miniature stone chapel. The old reflexes always kicked in and I automatically made the sign of the cross several times, then muttered prayers for ill friends and family members, and that poor pedestrian back in Athens.  I stopped to take lots of photos every time I made it to my turnaround point, the shady grotto with the quiet waves and dark boulders, and would say a final prayer as I passed the church a second, third, fourth time. 

I'd run from here, back to the top of the resort. I'd pretend I was the first person to discover this, which meant I had to ignore the crushed cigarette packs all over the ground.

The morning before we left Crete, I noticed a dark form on the top rung of a ladder propped up against the tiny church. I  stopped to take a closer look and saw a cat, curled up in the shade, staring down at me.  I grabbed my phone to take a photo just as another runner, white singlet and black capris, approached. It was our fourth day seeing one another out running. According to international sports law,  we were running buddies by that point.

She stopped and stared at the church too.   

“Le chat,” she said, nodding.

I pointed to my chest. “USA,” I said, then pointed to her and said, “Francais?”

She shook her head and maybe that would have been that, but we’re both runners and we share some common bonds. For one thing, we value life. When we drive we always stop for pedestrians.

We continued talking, she in broken English, me in sprained French.  I learned she’s from Belgium and likes to run 5ks. She learned I was from near Boston and that I run marathons.  We discovered we both like cats.  We agreed that Crete is beautiful. Then we parted. She headed toward the grotto, her turnaround point also, and I headed back to my room.  

As I trotted along the narrow pathway, past the old men and old women, the lemon grove, the guard shack cutie, up the hill past the tourist families returning from their first breakfast of the morning, my fellow workshop participants heading to early coffee, I thought about what a pleasure it was to be a runner, and how grateful I was to be alive and well and running, there in Greece. 

Le chat is there somewhere. Top rung I think.