The Road to Sparta

by Dean Karnazes

  It was quite an amazing accomplishment, and they were rightfully celebrated in the Greek press. “RUNNING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF PHEIDIPPIDES!” the headlines read. What they had done was indeed remarkable, especially given the hardships encountered along the way. Foden estimated that he ran about 50 percent of the way on tarmac and 50 percent on unpaved surfaces, and the amount of climbing and descending through the rugged Greek countryside was inestimable, though no doubt extreme. Vans were eventually reloaded and off they set back to Germany.

  The mystique of the endeavor impassioned Commander Foden, and in 1983 he cofounded one of the most grueling long-distance footraces in the world, the Spartathlon, an annual 153-mile race from, you guessed it, Athens to Sparta. More than 30 years later, however, this race remains an obscure, if not entirely unheard of, event even amongst marathon runners.

  Is this just? Does not the legacy of Pheidippides deserve more widespread recognition? After all, his is arguably the most important run in the history of mankind.

  “Yeah, sure,” you’re probably thinking. It’s a good story and probably deserves greater prominence, but the annals of history are littered with underappreciated heroes. Fair enough, though I urge you to withhold judgment until you hear about what happened next. The story of Pheidippides is more than this. Much more.

  11

  TOGA!

  In early spring of 1978, a primitive vessel called the Hokule’a set sail from the shores of Hawaii on a voyage across the Pacific to Tahiti. Composed of raw materials procured entirely from the land and mounted with traditional lauhala sails, the intention was to re-create the accomplishments of the original Polynesian explorers by following their ancient migratory route between the Hawaiian and Tahitian island chains. True to form, the crew would only be consuming traditionally preserved food during the round-trip journey.

  It was a bold plan. Some 2,400 miles of raw and exposed ocean needed to be crossed in a vessel that had virtually no modern equipment. This was a reenactment of a voyage that had taken place many centuries prior, and there were inherent risks in attempting such a journey, as many men had perished at sea in those earlier days of travel. But the lure of re-creating this ancient passage was too strong for the proud Hawaiian crew to resist, and on March 16, 1978, Hokule’a left Honolulu Harbor on a voyage to Tahiti.

  It wasn’t long before the ship ran into trouble. Several hours into the expedition, gale force winds started whipping the sea into a cauldron of torrential swells and shifting currents. The boat was stocked with a month’s worth of provisions, and soon this added weight created problems. Massive breakers began washing over the gunwales, flooding the starboard compartments; howling squalls tore apart the sails, violently rotating the windward side of the ship while precariously depressing the leeward hull. The panic-stricken crew scrambled about doing all they could to salvage the ship, but it was no use. During one exceptionally strong gust the Hokule’a fiercely pitched sideways and capsized, sending the men flying overboard.

  The situation had gone from terrible to tragic. There was nothing the men could do but cling to floating remnants of the overturned vessel and pray for a miracle. Nightfall came, and the midnight blackness made it impossible for the crew to see; desperate pleas for mercy could be heard between the shrill cries of the furious wind. Hypothermia, exposure, and exhaustion soon began taking their toll on the weary and waterlogged men. All seemed doomed.

  But one of the crew members happened to be a man by the name of Eddie Aikau. A proud Hawaiian by birthright, his ancestors had sailed these very seas for centuries. Eddie was known as a waterman (a Hawaiian colloquial term for a versatile athlete who can engage in multiple forms of water-sports and who is no stranger to intense ocean conditions). A champion big-wave surfer and lifeguard on the notoriously dangerous North Shore of Oahu, Eddie had ridden some of the world’s largest and deadliest waves and had saved many swimmers and surfers over the years. He’d brought along a surfboard on the journey that was still strapped to the hull, and he decided that something needed to be done. Eddie was going for help. It was a dangerous idea, but so was clutching a sinking hull hoping for aid that may never arrive. In the darkness of the gale, Eddie courageously set out on his surfboard with the intention of paddling to the island of Lanai in order to alert the Coast Guard and save the crew.

  He was never seen again.

  I first read about this story1 while in high school, and the impact it had upon me was profound. The whole notion of re-creating an ancient voyage was fantastic to me, a thing of legend. Learning about the events leading up to Eddie Aikau’s heroic death spoke to me. He wasn’t just a hero, he was a god. None of us endure forever; fault me if you will, but I could think of no more glorious way to go than alongside one’s forefathers in a brazen act of heroism.

  You can thus imagine my fascination when, many years later, I learned about the true story of Pheidippides. The romantic notion of running in his footsteps was the stuff of dreams. Here was a chance to realize my ultimate destiny. John Foden and his party had done a reasonable job attempting to reenact Pheidippides’s journey, but I wanted to plunge deeper, become entirely and wholly immersed and experience something that not only put me in his footsteps, but united me with him in mind and body as well. This was something I needed to do, something I had to do. Just as Eddie had sailed in the Hokule’a, I needed to be one with Pheidippides.

  But I didn’t launch into my mission boldly. Instead, I started with baby steps.

  State Street in Santa Barbara is the bohemian epicenter of this freewheeling coastal town. An eclectic assortment of unusual shops and restaurants, State Street is the place to go if you’re looking to find avant-garde and funky things, and Bizerk is a boutique that excels in this department. Specializing in wardrobe items from Hollywood movie sets, the store is a treasure trove of ostentatious and obscure outfits and costumes ranging from the glitzy to the gaudy.

  As I entered the store, it smelled musty and sweet, like mothballs and vanilla incense. I looked around and spotted an employee. She was placing a dreadlock wig on a green mannequin.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Do you have hoplite outfits?”

  She looked at me vaguely. “Is that some sort of hip-hop getup?” Her hair was purple.

  “Actually, it’s the clothing of the ancient Greek warriors.”

  “Oh, togas. Yeah, we’ve got tons of those.”

  She led me back to a section of the store that looked straight off the set of Ben-Hur. There was an amazing array of memorabilia along with a vast assortment of tunics and chitons, massive gladiator helmets and swords, bronze breastplates and shields from the set of 300, and glimmering artifacts and weaponry from scenes in Troy. I poked around looking for the right attire, and there, tucked neatly into a corner as if waiting for me, I found my very own Pheidippides costume.

  I thanked the clerk for her help and paid for the outfit. Now that I had the wardrobe, it was time to play the part.

  A relatively flat and mellow marathon (if there is such a thing), the Silicon Valley Marathon’s one redeeming factor is that the race always corresponds with Halloween weekend. I thought there might be other runners dressed in costumes and that I would naturally blend in with the pack. I was wrong.

  There was a guy wearing a Superman T-shirt, though I’m not sure if it was a Halloween costume or not. The looks I got along the way were interesting, to say the least, and a bit unexpected. People seemed genuinely stirred and inspired by the getup. There were fewer jeers and chuckles than what I’d anticipated, and even seemingly disinterested bystanders appeared to acknowledge my presence as I ambled by in a modified bed sheet. I found this warm reception odd, given that I was running down the streets of Silicon Valley half naked dressed as Pheidippides.

  Perhaps they felt sorry for me. Even though the outfit was airy and light, there was nothing comfortable about running in this ancient Greek wardrobe, and by the midway point of the race, chafing was developing in places where the sun don’t s
hine. I tried to adjust the fabric, but it was no use. It bound to my skin and mixed with the salty residue of my perspiration to form a gritty brine that abraded any area of skin the clothing touched. Wearing this outfit for 26.2 miles was an insightful experience, though not a particularly comfortable one.

  I was extraordinarily pleased to see that finish line when it eventually emerged. Unexpectedly, a group of Halloween revelers had gathered alongside the final stretch of raceway, and they chanted, “To-GA! To-GA! To-GA!” spraying beer in the air as I ran by. It was more like a scene from the movie Animal House than one from Zorba the Greek.

  The 2011 Silicon Valley Marathon provided a taste of what it must have been like for Pheidippides and the other hemerodromoi. But it was just a taste. I wanted more. I wanted to feast upon the marrow, indulge wholeheartedly in the flesh, and relive the true experience, and that just wasn’t going to happen on the roadways of Silicon Valley.

  * * *

  1 Which later became the basis of the book Eddie Would Go.

  12

  COMING HOME

  A friend of mine has a saying: “Sleep is for wimps.” But the past several days of travel had really tested my devotion to that oath. Starting in my hometown of San Francisco, I’d flown to the Midwest for the 2013 Chicago Marathon, driven over an hour back to O’Hare airport in bumper-to-bumper traffic immediately upon finishing the race while still in my running shorts, and then boarded a transatlantic flight to Europe, only to sit idly on the tarmac for the next 3 hours. As would be expected, the delay taking off caused a missed connection, so after the long flight I spent another inglorious 6 hours holed up inside an Amsterdam airport lounge. When my departure to Athens finally left the gate, I hadn’t slept in more than 2 days.

  This was my first trip to Greece and it had been too long in the making. One thing after another had derailed my plans: kids, work, mortgage payments, trying to spend time with aging relatives—basically, life. Or were these just excuses? Was there more to this than I understood? I’d traveled the world extensively. I’d been to Europe on many occasions, toured Italy—Greece’s next-door neighbor—extensively, and flown directly over Greece on my way to Alexandria, Egypt. I’d visited countries to the west, east, north, and south of Greece, but for some reason I’d delayed half a lifetime before finally making the pilgrimage to my ancestral homeland. It made no sense. Or did it?

  Whatever the case may be, I was hoping to arrive in a bit more refreshed and energetic state. Instead, after the exhausting travels, all I could think about was crawling into my hotel room’s bed and passing out. It was late in the afternoon when the plane finally landed, and the jetlag, sleep deprivation, and soreness—from just having run a marathon and sitting on my butt for the previous 40 hours—wrecked me. Sleep was the only thing on my mind, and I fought hard to keep my eyes open while I checked into the hotel and eventually dragged my luggage up the stairs to my room (the elevator was busted).

  Drawing the hotel blinds closed for some darkened slumber, I glanced out the window briefly, and what I saw sent shivers down my spine. I know that sounds cliché, but that is exactly what happened. For there, in the background, perched prominently upon a high, rocky plateau, sat the gleaming white pillars of the Acropolis.

  Suddenly, everything changed. I no longer wanted sleep. A rush of adrenaline coursed through my system, a miraculous vivacity washing over me like an incoming wave. When a place calls to you like this, you must answer its summons. Lacing up my running shoes, I slipped out the door.

  The rise up to the Acropolis was steep, yet labor I did not. No longer were my legs heavy with fatigue, but instead they felt remarkably renewed. The air was warm, though not too warm, humid, but not too humid. It was perfect, really.

  Just slightly did the sun still grace the sky, the final stages of its unhurried descent into the western horizon well under way as I made my way through the entrance of this majestic edifice perched atop all of Athens. Upward still to the Parthenon I climbed, head lowered, hearing only the sound of my breathing, my feet advancing soundlessly forward. Reaching the apex of these hallowed grounds, I turned toward the setting sun, and the gods spoke to me.

  Zeus split the clouds and cast thunderbolts of piercing light into the heavens above. The sky was awash in fiery orange, with streaks of buttery yellow, searing red, and flowery lilac all coalescing into a kaleidoscopic ballet, the burning scarlet sun easing into the wine-dark sea on one horizon counterbalanced by the iridescent lobe of a full moon ascending skyward over Mount Hymettus on the other. It was as though God held the sun and the moon on puppet strings and was playing the two together perfectly. I stood there, alone, no one in sight, mesmerized by the surroundings, when I was strangely overtaken by an uncanny sense of providence, as though I had stood there before, as though I was somehow meant to be standing there, now, at that precise moment in time. What was going on? For a suspended instant, time didn’t just stand still but seemed to move in reverse, like the sand in an hourglass flowing upward, history rewinding. What was causing these remarkable sensations? Then, abruptly, it all became crystal clear. An unmistakable conviction serendipitously emerged from the tumult, and I knew, with all certainty, the root cause of these intensely rousing feelings.

  I had come home.

  It’s hard to explain what it feels like when you arrive at a place where you were always meant to be. One thing is for certain, however: When it happens, you know it.

  In my 5 decades of existence I had never experienced such a spiritually impactful moment before. I doubt many people ever feel such a divine sense of destiny, and I am fairly certain that had I not come to Greece, I never would have felt it myself, either. I had come home.

  It took a few days of exploring and running around the city before I came down from this mystical awakening atop the Acropolis. When my eyes eventually cleared, what I saw was not entirely pretty. Greece was in the throes of a gripping recession, and I could now see the true impact of this economic collapse. Athens was a conflicted place. There were great works of ancient Greek historical significance on public display while directly around the corner there were alleyways filled with graffiti and homeless beggars digging through trash bins, searching for scraps of food. It was a tragic situation to behold. This was a country that had once been so proud and prominent, the cradle of democracy, and now it was in a desperate state of hopelessness and ruin. Many held opinions on how things had gotten to this point, but few offered options for fixing them. No easy answers existed, and in some ways, as I would come to learn, these problems had begun 2,000 years earlier.

  The next morning I was roused early for a press conference. I had come to Greece for a newly conceived sporting event called the Navarino Challenge. It was an inconvenient time of year for me to be traveling to Europe, but this trip was mostly about helping Greece, not about me.

  As a boy I remember one summer attending basketball camp. I loved the game, though I was never very good at it. I was just too compact and short to be a very effective player. I couldn’t get rebounds around the taller boys, and my shooting wasn’t very good, either. I wanted to help my teammates, to contribute in some meaningful way, but it seemed impossible to do much of anything. I felt helpless and didn’t know what to do.

  The camp I was attending was named after the legendary basketball coach John Wooden, who had led UCLA to 10 national championships in a 12-year period. Coach Wooden personally attended the camp. He saw what was going on and pulled me aside. I’ll never forget what he told me. “You’ve got talent,” he said, “but you’ll never be good at getting rebounds, but don’t let what you can’t do discourage you from doing what you can do. You’re a scrappy defensive player and quick with the ball. Do what you can.”

  This made sense to me. I took Coach Wooden’s advice and started hustling like crazy. I made a lot of steals and was like a hornet in the backcourt, buzzing around endlessly, impossible to swat. After Coach Wooden’s pep talk I changed my approach, focusing only on doing thos
e things that I could do. At the end of camp I was awarded the Most Inspirational Player prize by Coach Wooden and given a commemorative plaque of his “Pyramid of Success.” Basically, I won this award because I took two or three steps for every other player’s one, running around chasing the ball down, never slowing to catch my breath. That was something I could do, and that is what I did.

  The Greek economic situation was a massive, complex problem, one that would require extreme reforms. While it hurt me badly to see the country in such a sorry state, I certainly couldn’t fix the situation myself. But the Navarino Challenge was something I could do.

  Tourism is one of the largest contributors to the Greek economy, and sports tourism is a fast-growing subsegment of this industry. The Navarino Challenge was a way to showcase the best Greece had to offer. It would help promote sports, fitness, and the benefits of a Mediterranean diet, so when I was offered the role of being the official host and ambassador of the event, I jumped at the opportunity. It was the one contribution I could make to help Greece climb out of this mess.

  The Navarino Challenge was conceived both to bolster the Greek economy and to improve the health and wellbeing of all those who participated in the weekend of fitness and sport. Designed for athletes of every age and ability, the event was the brainchild of Greek-American Peter Poulos along with his Greek partner, Akis Tsolis, and had the backing of prominent Greek businessman Achilleas Constantakopoulos. The running distances were not excessive, covering a marathon over a couple days, but the intention was not to make this an elite endurance event. The idea, instead, was for the event to promote inclusiveness and to encourage citizen participation, not unlike the original Greek Olympic movement.