Translator: Tímea Hegyessy Reviewer: Csaba Lóki
I'm sure that this channel seems familiar for a lot of you.
This is the Corinth Canal in Greece,
which connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Aegean Sea,
and it was built by the plans of Hungarian architects.
It is visited by plenty of tourists.
I came here for the first time in 2010, but I didn't come as a tourist,
but by running, as a participant of the Spartathlon race.
The Spartathlon is a 246 kilometer long running race from Athens to Sparta.
The participants run from the bottom of Acropolis to Sparta's main square,
to the statue of King Leonidas, and they have 36 hours to finish this journey.
There are 75 check points between Athens and Sparta,
which the runners should reach within the designated time limit.
If it isn't met the runner will be disqualified.
The Spartathlon is believed to be
one of the toughest ultramarathons in the world.
Beside the distance, it is hard because of the heat and the elevation gains.
Despite all of these reasons - or exactly for these -
it attracts a lot of runners from all over the world.
390 runners get the chance each year to stand at the race's starting line,
if they have completed the specified qualifier races before.
Only the half or third of these runners
will be able to finish the race within the designated time limit.
The Corinth Canal is tremendously important for a Spartathlon runner.
After 82 kilometers behind us and another 164 before us up to the finish line,
this is the first point where we can meet our supporters.
By this point we should be prepared with our own refreshment supplies,
which we have sent to ourselves in advance and the ones provided by the organizers.
Bearing all of these in the heat of 30-40 degrees without any shadow,
which bolts the field pretty well by then.
By the Corinth Canal, 30 percent of the runners are forced to give up,
despite the lot of work they have put in.
A Spartathlon runner runs an average of 100-160 kilometers per week.
In the last 6 years I have run near to 8 thousand kilometers every year.
Dividing it by 365 gives a half marathon for each day.
And of course the strength trainings, the stretching,
and you would need some time for recovery as well.
This amount of training equals to the load of top athletes at the Olympics.
And I do that beside my 3 children and my dentist practice.
At the Corinth Canal a man is waiting for me,
who is the most important helper in my life: my husband.
He gives me my refreshment and encourages me a little bit,
and I continue my journey along the way.
This is the Mount Parthenion.
Spartathlon runners just call this The Mountain.
I reach the mountain in total darkness, after 159 kilometer running.
The mountain, where there is no one but me and the 1200 meter high grade,
where the last 3 kilometers run in a dark mountain trail
with a scarp on its side.
When I reach this point, I am over quite a few holes and my worse points,
my legs are constantly hurting and I vomited several times.
The mountain is a crucial divide in the Spartathlon.
A lot of runners already have to give up before the mountain.
This race is tremendously lonely and you are truly by yourself.
It is dark and silent,
and it makes you think about the goal you came here for,
and what you have to do to achieve it.
It sounds incredibly simple: just take one step after another,
and another, and another,
but these steps really hurt after this much time.
It is crucial that you can focus on your goal even in these circumstances.
You can, moreover, you have to practice it.
You have to think through thah during the trainings what will be that sentence
which will get you through, when your legs don't want to go anymore.
These are simple sentences: I am strong, I fight,
I am capable of more than this.
This little village is Nestani.
I have never seen it like this, I haven't seen it in daylight.
Just like that serpentine path down the mountain,
along which I've been running down to the village for years.
When I get here, it is always dark,
and the little lights of the village pop up.
A sweet little chapel, a small graveyard with lit graves.
However, this place is very hard for me.
There are mattresses and blankets in front of the chapel,
so the runners could take a rest.
After running 172 kilometers, there are 72 kilometers more ahead of me.
It is better to not even think about that.
I would just lie down on one of the mattresses and leave the whole thing,
but I can't, that's not what I came for.
One time I lay down for 8 minutes,
but it is awfully hard to get up.
But I have to because I want to finish the race in the designated time limit.
To finish a race like this,
you need 10 percent talent.
But you need sedulity, willpower, believing in yourself,
and that you are capable of doing it.
If you have all of that, for another 20 kilometers you still have a long,
dark, dreary road among industrial plants,
where I just hope,
that the lighting eyes in the dark are behind fences,
but I am always scared.
At the first streak of dawn I am on the road to Sparta,
on a 30 kilometer long grade, which is followed by a 20 kilometer long,
painful slope to the statue of King Leonidas.
It would be unbelievably hard to tell you how it feels to reach the statue,
so instead I'll show it to you.
(Video)
(Cheering) (Applause)
MC: Lucibs Silvia!
(Cheering) (Applause)
SL: So this is how you reach the finish line at the Spartathlon.
This is when another year of hard training is over,
when I reach the statue feeling exhausted, both physically and mentally,
because I have left everything on the journey.
After the Spartathlon we have a few days off with celebration,
a little rest, a little time for things for which we didn't have before,
but then we start preparing for next year's Spartathlon.
Because I have to tell you,
until now I have been on this race six times,
I completed it six times, I won three times.
In 2014 I ran the course record among women,
completed the distance in 26 hours 53 minutes.
Why do I enter this race again and again -
why all of us are able to
start over again, to sink again in the activity we love.
It is not because of some kind of outer motivation, applause or success,
but for our inner motivation,
to be better, more perfect in the thing which is important for us.
This is exactly why I wish you to find your own Spartathlon,
a goal for which you can work every day.
I wish you to reach that goal and get that feeling,
which I've been given for 6 years, when I reach the leg of King Leonidas.
(Applause)