Athens Authentic Marathon

 More than 45,000 runners from 92 countries participated in Athens' Authentic Marathon run on November 13, 2022

The run traces the steps of Phedippides, a news bearing Athenian soldier, who announced the victory of Greeks against the Persians at the Marathon battle in 490 BC.

Pheidippides collapsed and died after he said νενικηκαμεν that translates to "we won"

The Marathon race became one of the most competitive events during the revival of the Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens.  Spyros Louis won the gold medal in the first modern Olympics and became a legend in Greece.

The Marathon Race represents the highest effort in which the human body, soul and mind are tested to their limits as the runner presses to reach the finish line.

Here the young and not so young runners near the finish line in the Panathenaikon Stadium in Athens an unforgettable moment for the athletes, their families and friends.

This year a 91-year-old, Stelios Prassas participated and completed the Marathon run.  His success reminds us what humans can accomplish if they are physically gifted and have the will to train and prepare for the ultimate test in human endurance.

The Pillars of Creation

One of the most famous photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in 1995 was aptly named the “Pillars of Creation”.  It illustrates star-forming pillars of billowing dust and gas pointing to where “Stars are created from Chaos".  The picture we see depicts what that cosmic neighborhood looked like 7,000 years ago, as this is how long it takes to cross the intervening distance at the speed of light.

The Andromeda Galaxy is two million light-years away, thereby making it the nearest galaxy to ours. It is bigger than our Milky Way, as it contains at least one trillion stars, twice the number of stars our galaxy has.  The Andromeda Galaxy and our own Milky Way will likely merge in about four billion years in a cataclysmic and chaotic event, of death and birth of a myriad of solar systems, in our amazing and bewildering Cosmos.

Andromeda (Ἀνδρομέδα) means “ruler of men” in Greek.  She was the daughter of the King and Queen of Ethiopia.  When the vain Queen boasted that her daughter, Andromeda, was more beautiful than the Nereids, Poseidon became enraged. Consequently, he sent a sea monster, Cetus, to ravage the land of Ethiopia.  Andromeda was stripped and chained naked to a rock based on an oracle from Delphi as a sacrifice to appease the infuriated Poseidon. painting by Paul Gustave Dore (1869)

Perseus, the founder of Mycenae, was returning home and happened upon the chained Andromeda. He then sets her free and marries her. Andromeda follows her husband, first to his native island of Serifos, and from there they proceed to Argos, and they became the ancestors of the family of the Perseidae and thus according to the legend, Perseus is the ancestor of the Persians.  painting “La deliverance d’ Andromede” by Pierre Mignard (1679)

Ancient Corinthian vase depicting Andromeda, Perseus and Cetus.  Inscriptions are in archaic Greek alphabet, running to the left and using letters such as E instead of H, and reverse B and V instead of Y.

Train trip ..... part II

The modern version of the California Zephyr train left promptly at 9:22am from Emeryville and after running along San Francisco’s bay reached Davis and soon after Sacramento, Golden State’s capital city.  

We then started the climb of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  Their name in Spanish means snow covered (“sierra” for mountain and “nevada” for snow covered). We went thru forests and alpine lakes and reached Reno at 4:06pm.  We had lunch with two train enthusiasts.  Steve was from Iowa and knew a lot about trains.  Barbara was from Ithaca, NY and told us about her daughter an ultra-marathoner who like Forrest Gump is always running.  I asked her to suggest to her daughter to run the Spartathlon, the 153 miles or 246 kilometers ultra marathon from Athens to Sparta in Greece.  The Spartathlon commemorates the run of Pheidippides, who in 490 BC, before the battle of Marathon was sent to Sparta by the Athenians to seek help.  According to Herodotus he arrived at Sparta the day after his departure from Athens!  After his return to Athens presumably by running, Pheidippides fought in Marathon and when the battle was over he ran the 26 miles back to Athens and announced the victory of the Athenians over the Persians.  The story has it that after he said “νενικηκαμεν» that means we won, he died.

After lunch we moved to the observation car that because of its many windows allows for panoramic views of the landscape.  After we left Colfax we saw the American River Canyon and its river.  Gold miners and prospectors mined the river for gold and some struck it rich.  At this point we were at 1,500 feet above the river and the view was stunning.  The train continued its climb over the Sierra Nevada.  This is where tunnel No1 was dug up thru the toughest granite on earth.  The workers worked 24 hours a day and managed to dig approximately 6 inches a day as they did not have power tools. While on the Sierra we saw several passes the early settlers had to negotiate on their way to California.  At the Emigrant Gap the cliffs are so steep that the 1840s pioneers had to lower their horses and wagons and themselves with ropes in order to continue towards California.

We went then by Yuba gap where in 1952 the eastbound train became trapped and immobilized by the snow. The train its 158 passengers became hostages of the blizzard for four days. The National Guard played a major role in their rescue.  Interestingly our train had to stop at the same point because the tracks or ties ahead had become loose and had to be fixed.   We then traveled towards the Donner Pass where the Donner Party was stranded.  They were trapped by heavy snowfall and difficult terrain in the winter 1846-47 and allegedly some practiced cannibalism in order to survive. 

After Reno we started on our crossing of the Nevada Desert had dinner and went to sleep.  Sleeping on the train is an interesting experience.  Some of the passengers dislike it because of the continuous rattling while others like it.  It reminded me of sleeping in a sailboat where the motion is endless but soothing.