My name is Constantine Nicholas Karnazes, son of Nicholas Constantine Karnazes, grandson of Constantine Nicholas Karnazes, and so forth and so on throughout the ages.
My father's family raised goats in a little village called Silimna near Tripolis in the Peloponnese. My mother's family hails from the sundrenched island of Icaria, far from mainland Greece and a world onto its own.
Me, I am a runner. It's in my blood. Had I been born 2,500-years earlier I would have been an esteem hemerodromous, just like Pheidippides. Instead of battling the scourges of modern-day America, I would have been battling the Persians at Marathon. What's in my DNA cannot be altered, that is a battle not worth fighting.
How did this come to be? Perhaps owing to my Greek ancestry, beginning at a young age I was fascinated with endurance and discipline. Some of my earliest childhood recollections are of sitting quietly in Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Los Angeles listening to an exhaustive Divine Liturgy, largely delivered in Greek, punctuated with endless refrains of, "Kyrie eleison," (Lord, have mercy) always thrice-repeated with the final verse delivered slower, more drawn out and deliberately, "Kee-ree-e e-le-ee-sawn..." as if to be saying, "Okay, Lord, we really mean it this time, have some mercy will ya please!" Get a Greek Orthodox Archbishop going and you could be up for days on end. These sermons were not known for their brevity.
Yet, I would sit there attentively for hours, even as I watched other people falling asleep at the pews. Many used to tell my parents that I was going to be a priest one day, but the truth was I had little interest in the sermon itself (what 5-year old boy could even understand this stuff?). What interested me was exercising my ability to keep myself still while sitting attentively through something I barely understood for hours on end. I had a deep desire to master my body and mind, and sitting idle within the church's sacred Nave engaged in protracted liturgical worship was the acid test of willpower and self-control.
Another early memory was that of our Easter Picnic festivities. Greek Orthodox Easter was, from what I could tell, one massive party. Never had I seen so much wine and raucousness taking place in a single location. The quantities of food and celebration were beyond belief, but what really struck me were the older Greek men dancing endlessly without rest. Most of them were from, "the old country" (i.e., they were Greek immigrants) and they seemed a bit less interested in food and carousing and more interested in moving with incredible form and exquisite mastery to the rhythmic strumming of the Hellenic Sounds playing away on their dual 8-string bouzouki's.
Most of these men were in remarkable shape, lean and fit with beautifully preserved olive skin and a head full of peppery grey hair. Their faces were chiseled and taught, and they danced with whomever would dance with them, and even by themselves when everybody else tired. These were hardy men, resilient and determined, wise to the ways of the world, men who had endured hardship and struggle far beyond anything their domestic American bred offspring would ever know. My grandfather immigrated to the U.S. when he was 14-years old with 20 dollars in his pocket and the hope of foraging a new life in a place far removed from the hills of Greece.
In between sets of music when the band was taking a break, I would watch these men exchange shots of a clear liquid from a little handheld glass they held, sometimes hoisting this memento into the air before consuming (I later learned the contents of which to be Ouzo). When the band gathered the energy to resume, these men were the first back out onto the dance floor.
Our family would leave sometimes near midnight, and the final people remaining at the festival were the old Greek men, still dancing as though it were noon. Their endurance was extraordinary.
Why I would remember these particular things as a child I do not know.
A final childhood memory was that of a footrace during kindergarten. We would be racing against the 1st and 2nd graders, too, and they were older and stronger. From play during recess, I knew I wasn't the swiftest kid around, other boys and girls would frequently outsprint me. But this was a contest of four laps around the schoolyard.
The gun sounded and we all took off. Some kids went out at a full on sprint pace, racing as though they were running a hundred yard dash. By the end of the first lap I was somewhere in the middle of the pack. By the end of the second lap many of the initial sprinters were complaining that the race was too long. But the teachers kept telling them that it was four laps and to keep going. Most of them quit or started to walk.
At the end of the third lap nearly all of the kids were walking from exhaustion or sitting on the sidelines. I just kept chugging along, not really paying attention to my position because there were so many kids in front of me.
But, come the fourth lap, something remarkable occurred. I passed the final kid and found myself in front of the pack leading the race. This surprised me, as it is hardly what I'd expected the outcome to be. Even more startling to me, I still had lots of energy left. I just kept running along, not feeling very tired at all.
I came across the finish line a full half lap ahead of the nearest rival. Not once had I slowed or walked, I just kept going at a steady pace throughout the duration. I felt like I could have kept going, I wasn't even tired.
The teachers didn't seem to make much of it, initially at least. They just congratulated me and then went about corralling all of the other kids in an effort to get us back inside the classrooms. Later that day, however, I started to notice side conversations between teachers, and then they would look over at me. I could tell they were talking about me, but I didn't know what they were saying. But this happened on several occasions, and I thought they might be saying something good. Who knows, really? I was only 6-years old and feelings and emotions were the presiding cognizant awareness, not logical thought and intellectual analysis. For all I know now they could have been making fun of me.
Either way, I didn't really care. Yeah, I had won the race, but running laps around the playground didn't particularly interest me. What I really loved was running home after school. This was where true freedom could be found. Screw running around in circles within the confines of some caged manmade institution; real adventure took place outside of the school walls.
Running through the park, chasing the ducks around the lake, breathing the open, clean air blowing in from across the Pacific, marveling at the great expanses before me, this was the stuff of life. A man's education didn't belong inside a classroom, not even at six-years old.
Why is it these thoughts and experiences were some of my earliest childhood recollections? This remains anybody's guess. Nature? Nurture? Who's to say? Perhaps we really were born to run and some people feel this intrinsic primordial instinct stronger than others? Perhaps the hemerodromoi spirit had been passed along through the ages and my living out this natural calling was simply manifest destiny? Or maybe it was on account of my mom pushing me around town in a stroller from sun up to sun down beginning from the day I was born? Then again, she is Greek, too. So perhaps she was unconsciously living out her inherited linage.
Whatever the case may be, it is who I am. I love to explore, and my two feet always took me to where I wanted to go.
My father insists that we hail from the same village as Pheidippides, the original Greek marathoner. I always remind him that I grew up in Southern California, not the mountains of Greece. And besides, I tell him, mom's side of the family is from the island of Icaria. "There are plenty of hills in Icaria, too," he reminds me.
"Do I really want to follow in the footsteps of Pheidippides?" I ask him, knowing full well that the ancient Greek foot-messenger is alleged to have died after running from the battlefield of Marathon to the Acropolis to deliver news of the Greek's victory over the invading Persians forces.
"What more noble way to go," he laments.
I think he was kidding, but in a strange sort of way I could relate.
___________________ Renowned ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes was named by TIME magazine as one of the, "Top 100 Influential People in the World." He will be traveling to his ancestral motherland in October to lead the Navarino Challenge, a three-day festival of running and health. To learn more about the Navarino Challenge, visit: www.navarinochallenge.com/ To learn more about Dean, visit: www.UltramarathonMan.com |
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