... at the Race for the Cure in Athens and the 10K at the day of the Athens Classic Marathon!
On September 30th the Race for the Cure is being held in the center of Athens. This is a very important 5K for me since it's about breast cancer awareness and I've lost my mother from breast cancer. The thing is that she had cancer for the first time 20 years ago and because she realized very early she lived for fifteen more healthy years.
Denial is the most common defense mechanism in people... It's what makes people say "oh, no!" when they hear about an accident, or "I can't believe it!". It's what makes parents overlook the obvious signs that their offspring is on drugs, the wife not see that her husband is cheating on her, me not self-examining myself believing that if I don't see it it won't be there...
So, I guess I'm going to run so that more people spread the message that early diagnosis can save your life and maybe convince myself, too...
Since many of you have been asking me why I haven't been writing for
such a long time I have to inform you that I did not want to die, or
anything, it's just that I was at some island and I am pretty happy!
Here are some photos so you'll get why I stayed there for 10 days instead of 3 as originally planned :)
Our bets in life can be a huge deal.
Our bets can be "I'll be married by the time I'm thirty", "When I'm over 50 I'll quit smoking and I'll eat better", "If I manage to run up the stairs before the lights turn off my parents won't die".
Most runners that I know of have a bet against themselves. "I'll run the 21K in under 1:30, I'll do the marathon in under 4 hours, today I'll go over the 10K". My secret bet was to run the 10K in under 1 hour.
The day before I left for Chios I asked my loved ones to give me a song for my race playlist. None of them could be there so it would be like taking them with me. Beautiful songs, funny, touching, personal, along with my punk-rock touch went together to help me keep going.
The legen- wait for it- playlist
1. Aggelakas- siga mhn klapsw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHP__qTGeHM
2. Nightcall- under your spell
3.familjien -det snurran i min skalle
4. zakopower -Boso
5.The clash- police on my back
6.mora sti fotia -kato stin poli http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpnJkjpgxOM
7. Blitzkrieg pop- the ramones
8. I don't want to grow up- the ramones
9. Florence The Machine - Dog Days Are Over
10. Manowar- Number 1
11. Bandista- haydi barrikata
12. the prodigy- omen
13.the ramones-what a wonderful world
14.the clash- I fought the law
15.Bill Conti- Gonna fly now
15 the ramones- I wanna be sedated
16. Bandista (some other one)
17. Goran Bregovic - Kalashnikov
18. Bad religion- No Control
19. Coma- pasazer
The trip to the race didn't start so well. The people that would put me up for the night were out of town so in the end I stayed in a hotel, which a friend found an hour before I arrived after a few stressful phone calls . That wasn't that bad, since I was a super-tired sleep deprived schizoid and I could use my private space, not having to interact with people, no matter how nice they might have been.
My mp3 player broke down just a couple of hours before I arrived to Chios. So, no precious playlist, which really sucked...
The Day of The Race
I woke up at 6am for the second day in a row (and I didn't sleep at 10...) to take the bus to the race. At the bus stop no-one was talking to each other, except for a group of Turkish runners. I mean, we were like, no more that twenty people waiting there... I started thinking I was doing something really wrong when, as soon as I arrived, most of them started eating their bananas (bananas are like the Runners' Holy Communion) while I was sipping my double espresso. I might as well have arrived with a beer in my hand...
There was the Hobo Runner with a beard and all (he looked like an ex-boyfriend of mine, so if you ever read this, no offense!), the Athletic Old Lady (she was faster than me) and the Champion: the tanned, shaved (and I mean the legs), with a T-shirt with his name on and a Super GPS Watch kind of guy which I immediately disliked. This was the time when I thought I should take out my broken mp3 player and pretend I'm listening to my music...
We arrived at the starting point and I must say that the organizers were super nice people, doing their best to make the first race work smoothly, people who genuinely love running and their island. It turned our that there where more than 200 runners that showed up, many of whom where people who'd never ran a race before and that came "for the fun of it".
Just before the race starts I received an sms from the guy to whom I once had to explain that I was not running to win, I wasn't running for the time, I was running for another cause: "Remember what you've told me : I'm going to run for myself, not to win but because I have to run". Stick to that and everything's going to go great."
I started running and I was focused on my pace, on my breath, on my pulses, on the road, on time so I could finish in under 1 hour. And then I realized that I wasn't looking around and I was missing what I'd really went there for : the place. I smiled to myself, I stopped thinking and I just did what I do every day: I ran.
This is what I didn't miss:
I ran listening the songs on the playlist in my head
The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
Can you hear the horses
'Cause here they come
Run fast for your mother and fast for your father
Run for your children for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind you
Can't carry love with you if you want to survive
I stopped twice to pick some jasmine flowers to put in my cleavage :). That must have made me the sassiest runner of the race!
After the race I kept them between the pages of a notebook and I I'll frame them. They are my most personal medal!
I did the 10,5K in 1:04:13 and I was 8th amongst the women.
Not bad for a depressed cuckoo runner!
The Champion came 3rd, doing the 21K in 1:17. The guy knows his shit!
I finished barely sweating, he finished covered in sweat and complaining about a pain on his left arm.
(I thought he was having a heart attack, but I decided to keep my mouth shut for a change...)
The Champion turned out to be a really cool guy. I had so many hours to kill before my ferry was leaving, so we decided to have some lunch together. It turned out that he was tanned not because of solarium overuse, but because his mom is Mexican and he usually trains outdoors. The T-shirt with his name on it was from a group race where each one had to write their name and blood type on it (probably a fight-club race or a zombie race or something...). I noticed the small Aztec bird spirit printed over his heart. The Aztecs believed that in the heart lies a small portion of sunlight, so they had to make human sacrifices to make sure that the Sun would keep rising. Thus, they were known as "The People of the Sun".
We ended up spending the day together, driving amongst the recently burning forests of the island, between the traditional stone villages that survived the fire, the smell of the burnt wood and wild oregano mixed in the air, the view of the scorched trees in contrast to the intact villages, a surreal image so tragic, dramatic and almost beautiful.
Photos by Pavlos Saridis
We climbed to the medieval village hanging on the top of a cliff, like an eagle's nest.
I had to steal some more photos from another blog, because I had no camera.
The Anavatos medieval village
Photos by Pavlos Saridis
So, the dog days are never over. I feel so much better - I can even say that I am happy sometimes- but the depression might strike back. Whenever I feel bad again (and the signs of depression are oh-so clear...) I keep reminding myself that it's not a life-circle, that I cannot go back to where I was at the really bad days, that I've been through therapy and I know myself much better, that I've crossed one of the toughest trails...
On Sunday I ran alone carrying all of you with me. I ran alone thinking of my
sister hugging me before my trip telling me "you are already a winner
for me, I'm so proud of you". I ran alone thinking how amazing it is
that I am able to run, that I am able to enjoy this amazing view, that I
am able to wake up in the morning and not feel like I'm half-dead, not
thinking that life is so unbearable that death seems so comforting.
Because, at the end of the day there is only one bet : either you're over, or under the ground.
As my sister puts it: "Oh, well..."
Oh, well... Since we're here, let's just live the most out of another day.
