Spartathlon for Maree Connor

spartathlon - 28-29 September 2024 - athens, greece

Contributed by maree connor, autra member (tweeds head, nsw)

From there the race leaves the busy highway onto smaller, dirt roads, through olive groves and vineyards. It was like that then for miles until it was dark and beyond. I did enjoy this first day and everything was going to plan and on track for a planned sub 30hr finish (an arbitrary goal I had decided was tough for me but also doable if I wanted the challenge) - or so I thought. 100km in to a 246km race is too early to be thinking about finish times...

I met crew again at 93km for more sun cream in the town of Ancient Corinth, a gorgeous small town with cobbled stone streets and incredible Greek ruins. Just stunning if you are with it enough to take in the views. … Gah, this race really was remarkable and I made sure I took time to look around while running, taking in all the sights around me.

As dusk came, I welcomed the evening by changing into a singlet and removing the vest. My body decided it was now to remind me how much sodium I had lost without adequate replacement and for the very first time in my life - I experienced muscle cramping. Why not! My hands lost dexterity, my elbows were not bending and my hips and quads locked. I was reduced to walking for over an hour and struggled mentally in this section getting frustrated as runners I’d passed, started passing me. I was now about 1hr behind my plan now but I tried to think only about how lucky I was to be running amongst such elite athletes and in this amazing race. When I finally got to my crew, I got angry about missing salt, took 5 salt tablets and a load of calories, then more salt, stretched and tried to refocus myself to get back on the way. Now the night section and 50ish km in the dark to the mountain at 160km, where I would get to see my crew only once more before then.

It was between 9pm and roughly midnight and along this point (120-145km) where I started getting a little… scared. stressed. I was feeling quite vulnerable. I was a solo runner, some headlights around from other runners but quite sporadic and away in the distance, minimal cars, lots of barking from stray dogs following me and I couldn’t get it out of my head that I was a female, alone in the Greek countryside, along a dirt road with no phone or ability to contact anyone and what if something happened to me... I was spooking myself. It took hours and a lot of mental energy to calm myself down from this point. I lost more time and now was over 2hours behind my original plan of sub 30. I eventually pulled myself together and was finally moving well enough to catch up to another runner around 140km and it was a British fellow. He was moving well and I asked if I could run with him, telling him how I was feeling about being alone and that I was going to “stick to him like glue if he was ok with that”. He was extremely kind and said, “I will stay with you until the town or crew CP so you feel safe”. What a guy, his name was Matthew.

Matthew and I ran through the crew CP at 143km together, where he received aid but I couldn’t find my crew. It was ok, I had no idea what km I was at this stage anyway thinking my watch was off and expecting a crew point at ?150km. So, I just grabbed a few cups of water and a coke cup from the aid station and walked on, knowing Matthew would catch me soon enough. From there though, it was actually another 15km to the crew CP around 160km at ‘base of mountain’ so my head was clearly wrong and I should have taken more nutrition to cover that distance. I had been running on adrenaline for hours by this stage so a little further had to do. It did.

At the base of mountain CP, I met my crew and had a good debrief and reset for 20min. They had also had drama and taken a wrong turn ending up in a field or olive grove somewhere because I had mislabelled the CP sheet for them (that’s why they were not at the 143km CP). Thankfully, both crew and I were so happy to see each other that the stress of everything else going on had evaporated. It was 2:15am now and British runner Matthew was in and out of the CP fast. As I was leaving and ran over the timing mat, I saw his crew and asked where he was; “oh he’s gone about 5 minutes ago” they told me. This meant one thing - if I didn’t want to be alone for the rest of the night, I had to run hard to catch him! I did. I ran straight up that trail singletrack goat track with its switchbacks, all shaly and rocky and slippery. I just leaned in and took off, bouncing right up this hill, passed a few runners and absolutely loved it. I caught him about 2 thirds up and walked the rest up with him. Post race when I uploaded my GPS, it seems my 1.5km jog straight up that mountain scored me ‘Queen of the Mountain’ and 2 Strava crowns – which is the only positive takeaway about a female running scared.

Once we hit the top, we ran straight through the CP and began the decent immediately. It was more of the same shitty rocks and shale for a few km down. Descending the mountain and now heading for CP Nestani at 172km, we made up some time and did this section quite easily, arriving at Nestani before 4am. Matthew and I worked together keeping each other awake and positive overnight. As it was starting to become day and the 24hr marker of running was looming, we continued to take turns to pace sections and remind each other of why we were there and what we were doing, telling stories and making jokes, trying to keep fatigue and exhaustion away. I think we were good company for each other.

Once daylight came, we were again moving well, hitting all the hills and 187km before 6am and 195km just after 7am. From here, there were a lot more rolling hills and we were also back on the highway. Trucks roared passed and we roared passed other runners. There certainly is an advantage working in a pair and pushing each other. We moved steadily and paced well up hills using 1min on, 1 min off strategy for what seems like hours. Some of the hills were huge and this gave me something else to focus on (calling out the 1min timers)! Before we knew it, we were up and over the range and moving towards 227km around 11.30am, clawing back some time. It was stinking hot and exposed, more so than the day before.

Well behind what I initially wanted to achieve for this race, I had forgotten about any time goals and simply wanted to finish at this point and we were absolutely feeling the fatigue and heat using lots of ice down the back of the vest. Reduced to coke and water at aid stations, we soldiered on hitting the last CP 2km from the finish 12min before 2pm. Hours earlier we decided we’d cross the finish line as a pair since we had run over 100km of the race together. Hitting this last CP, we encouraged each other deciding to try to sprint to finish the final 2km before the o’clock (which was 31hr). We decided to give it a go and started running as fast as we could, coming into Sparta and down the main street towards the bronze statue of King Leonidis, sweating everywhere, running at like 6min pace lol!.

Running in the final 200m with the local children and crossing the timer then up the steps, I touched his foot 10sec after 31 hours. The race is over when you kiss the foot and here is where you receive an olive wreath, and a goblet of water from the river Evrotas to sip before you receive a medical check and foot wash. All the bells and whistles are not enough for the beloved Spartathlon finishers! They really turn it on!

This was an amazing race; I finished as 9th female and 43rd overall out of 395 starters. Unfortunately, over half the field did DNF this race for various reasons, and I think this shows how tough the race really is. I certainly have profound respect for it now and for the strong people who have finished it before me. As my friend John crossed the finish line later that day, we can be heard saying, “I will never do that again”. However, it has been a month now… and my tune has changed… Maybe I would like to do it again one day!