Over/Under

***Updated***


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.




This is for the People of the Sun:

A trip to a place I've never been before

When I don't write for a long time it usually means that I feel like shit and I want to die; or that I'm too busy having a great time!
This time it was a case of a really bad week. I found myself doing things with the same look of pointlessness that I had during my major depression months. 

In the meantime I kept following my schedule towards the 10K. Yesterday, for the first time, I ran for a whole 40 minutes. For the first time I did something I've never done before, I went to a place I've never been before. Next week it will be 50 minutes, then 60. It's extraordinary that you just keep going for 5 more minutes and you're at a new place. When I'm tired while I run I think "running really is putting one foot in front of the other"; and then I take another step, and another, and another...

My friend Papi C. is suffering from depression and I don't know how to help him.
Yesterday, I managed to tell him "you know, if you don't feel well, you can call me anytime. I'm here for you". It was so difficult because I meant every word, and I know that the most important thing for me when I could not do anything else but lay in bed feeling guilty because I was so helpless was that there where some loving people around me who persuaded me that they would be there for me no matter how shitty I look, even if I was just sitting there doing nothing and some of my few words where "there is not point...". These people told me "we are here for you" and they meant every single word.
What my schizoid personality and his panic of real relationships made me choke down was the simple words: "I love you, man...". I cannot help him get better, but these words, I owe to him.

This is a photo of me while I was in major depression:

I was sitting in the balcony under the sun doing nothing. And then I would try to go for a walk but I couldn't walk more that 10 minutes or so. I would go back home and do a little more of nothing. They would feed me and water me. My boyfriend at the time would come pick me up and take me for ice-cream. Sex was out of the question.
I started getting educated on the best ways to kill myself. I don't want to kill myself anymore, but when I hear people joking about killing themselves saying:  "I'm going to fall on the metro rails", I'm thinking:
"Amateurs... that's just a 5% success rate..."

The idea

There's a thought that's been going through my mind for a long time.
I want to leave, I want to travel and see more of the world. I think I'm going to run while I'm doing that. I have no money and just a vague idea of a plan. This is my way of -hopefully- running away from depression. I have little faith in the future and I don't know what else to do.

Running is my small victory, something I'm doing with my two legs, my lungs and my heart. I started because it's something you can do even if you have no-one in the world, and that's how I felt. I keep going because my great support group of friends and family will pat me on the back and ask me "How far did you go today?". A friend that has never been involved in any kind of physical exercise in his life asked me once: "Did we make it to the 10 minutes, yet?" and then I felt that I had to run. My sister will comment on every entry inspiring me to keep going. My coach from the Other Side of the World told me that I'm inspiring him; I run 6Ks and he's running Marathons. My brother will tell me that men suck and that I should keep going no matter what. My 34-year old single friend will recommend my blog to all the single 30+ year old friends who will mention anything about depression/running/biological clocks and kids. Papi C. will tell me "Let me know if you post anything new on your stupid blog", meaning he can't wait to read the new entry :)

The plan
Maybe I'll run with a "run-cuckoo-run" T-shirt on.
I don't want to "raise awareness". I want people who are depressed to tell their friends about it. I've made tons of excuses when I had to cancel meeting a friend because a few hours before I would start panicking about not feeling great when I'd meet him/her. Your family might be more understanding than you think. Your parents might feel you are blaming them in the beginning, but there's also a good chance they will support you, emotionally and even financially. Ask for help, because the more you're delaying it the harder it will be for you to recover. It took me 3 years to realize that I should do it.


The run
My first 10K race will be on Chios island, on September 2nd.
After that I'll take a boat to Turkey and according to my budget and time restrictions I will visit Cesme, Ayvalik and Izmir.

1st Chios run video and website:


1st Chios half-marathon





Wish me luck!

Eat, don't pray, run (not very funny, but couldn't do better)

My sister says that Florence is the best place for a lonely girl. She also said that when you go there you must call someone and shout "Oh, my god! it's so beautiful I have to share it with someone!"

So, Florence, it is!
Yep, I'm traveling alone... I wish I had someone to share it with, but why not having one has to prevent me from going? I'll be the cool independent woman for the weekend, hahaha!

Second run today, I'm taking half the week off, but I will be walking a lot, I promise...