Day 39, Tuesday 3 June - Athens - It's Marathon Week!

Start Point.....Finish Point

Ah Athens....the last time I was here I was an impoverished 19 year old school leaver. With the last few pounds in my pocket I found a 3 day bus back to UK. We started with 2 drivers but one was arrested at the (then) Yugoslavian border for smuggling coffee. I was sat next to a nun who would not allow me to open the window for 3 days. When we arrived in Belgium on the 3rd day, our remaining driver, deserving I guess of some additional reward, took the coach on a tour of the back streets of Brussels and pulled up outside a row of windows with women sitting in them. One of the women left her perch as the driver went inside. We remained transfixed and unbelieving on the bus (The look on the nun's face remains with me to this day!). 20 minutes later the driver came out, all smiles, and we continued to Ostende to catch the ferry to England.

Anyway such digressions from the business of the week. It is Marathon week as many of you know.

Andreas - Bouzouki player, postman and football coach

Last Friday was paddling down the coast and pulled into tiny Sesi for a quick stretch. Then the sounds of a Bouzouki floated down from the taverna.......

Andreas, Costas, Georgious and more instructed me to join them for a late lunch. A quick stretch turned into a long, long one. Well Sesi was as good a place as any to start walking. That night strolled into the darkness to Grammatiko and slept in the house of Costas, the taverna owner. Then Saturday morning I left and walked the 7km to Marathonas, to breakfast with Andreas and his family. Andreas; bouzouki player, Marathonas postman and coach of the Marathon Fighters soccer team, took me to the start line for the classic 42km marathon route to Athens.

The crowd roared at the start in Marathonas. 42km to go

9am, the crowd roared, the gun went off and I was away. It started well enough but a third of the way in, my training programme of sitting down in a kayak for 35 days not using my legs, was starting to pay off (or was it payback?). My quads started to pain me, initially just twinges. But by the halfway mark, they were bloody sore! Rain began to fall on a day when I hoped to stay dry after all the time in the kayak, in the water. Luckily it didn't last.

41km to go

Race Marshall holds me up

The route of the marathon is not quite what it was when Phidippides ran it in 490C. For those familiar with Sydney roads, I'd liken it to spending a day walking down a combination of Parramatta Road and the M5. I took my chances on the road itself a few times, but was usually scared back onto the verge and the bushes by close calls with cars.

Pain grew as kilometres passed ever slower. Would I break 10 hours? At one point I was thinking how much of a beer desert Greece was - not a lot of choice - and pondered whether there was any move to boutique beer brewing. As I did, on the other side of the 6 lanes, I spied The Beer Corner. But it was too far for me to visit! 30km in, a tortoise passed me on the trail.

Overtaken by tortoise and not moving much faster than hubcap

The closer I got to Athens, the blue line, painted for the 2004 Athens Olympics, faded further, a function of more and more tyres screeching across it. The legs felt dead (how will I be for the first days in the Alps trekking traverse!) and I even started looking for the laybacks on the pavement to avoid stepping up 20cm onto a kerb.

A defiant finisher outside the fence at the Panathenaic Stadium

Then I looked to my left just before 7pm and there was the Panathenaic Stadium, the home of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 and the finish for the Marathon that year and again in 2004. But the crowds had left but for a few milling around inside. 'Can I go in?' I asked an attendant taking down some barriers. 'We are just now closed' he replied. So with 300 metres to go, around the track, I'm stymied but I'm done. Pleasingly though, the IOC have subsequently confirmed my time of 9:49:15 is a new Olympic Record for a Welsh Australian Kayaker aged 50!

From Famine to Feast

My first kayak race in Greece

Legends Stavros and Dimitris (plus some no hoper)

Stavros Georgarakis, legend and founder of Cannibals Kayak House (a brilliant kayak shop in Athens) picked me up and 2 hours later we were back at Sesi collecting Miss Grape. Thence to Schinias in readiness for Sunday's kayak/run/bike festival run by Surfers4Life, a brilliant organization supporting young cancer sufferers. I was a guest at the festival; handing out a few trophies, talking about my journey, about my own efforts to rauise money to help children. Andreas turned up with the President of the Marathonas Football Club to present me with a jersey too. A really great day with a magical vibe. Having seen no kayaks since I left Turkey, that day I was amongt a large chunk of the Greek kayak community. A fun 3km race saw sit on tops, sea kayaks, surf skis and whitewater boats getting soaked as a thunderstorm hammered rain down. Fun times!

2/3 of the total number of Tiderace Pace 17 Tour kayaks in Greece (plus some plastic thing!)

Aussie, Aussie Aussie!! - No more under a Flag of Convenience
Many of you will know that I have been flying a New Zealand flag since Gallipoli. Here, back in Athens, a huge shipping conference is taking place this week. It only seemed apt that now was the time to move away from my 'flag of covenience' and return to the Australian fleet. So a visit to the Australian Embassy was arranged and a very nice little presentation from the Australian Ambassador, saw me leave with an Aussie flag. Ok, it's a bit smaller than the Kiwi one........
I celebrated last night at Dimitris house, another kayak legend here, making a Greek salad, my 'signature dish'!

There was some talk about taking the bigger one behind....

To the Canal....To the next Marathon - 100km paddle in one day!

Late today I get back on the water. Tomorrow I hope to pass through the Corinth Canal and thence to Kiato where Olga, Secretary of the Pan Hellenic Greek Australian Society, is helping rally the locals and helping with.......the big paddle on Friday 6 June.

BUT I need more pledges to get me to the Start line. I'm well short of my target of $2000 just to start (see details below). So come on people....give me the incentive I need. Over 1300 people read the last Blog post about my 100km plan. If you all just gave $2/1 Euro I'd be there!!

Big thanks to those who have made pledges so far!

How you can Help....
I'm not doing this cos I need the challenge. I'm doing it to raise money for Save the Children. With this in mind I'm asking you to join my challenge and pledge to donate an amount if I complete the mediterr année Marathon. If I don't succeed you don't pay. I need to know there is at least $2000 (1300 Euros) pledged to ensure I start (but I hope to raise a lot more than that). You can make your pledge either by sending an email to info@mediterrannee.com.au or stating your pledge on the Facebook item about this.

If I'm successful then you can go to the mediterr année Save the Children donation page here . To all my Greek and European friends you can use any valid Visa/Mastercard here. There will be a small conversion fee from Australian dollars on your bill. If for any reason you are not happy with doing that then we can find an alternative so don't be afraid to pledge your Euros/Pounds etc!

Remember 100% of your donation goes straight to Save the Children for the superb work they are doing with children affected by war and conflict in Syria and elsewhere.

Finally, for now, for those following me on the Spot Tracker to see where I reach each day, we've changed to a new website to show the map. On this it shows from Day 1 not just the last 7 days. The new link is http://huwkingston.followmyspot.com/mediterr-annee

Thanks for your support!