Panaxaiko trail 2015 (small)

Small race of the two in Panachaiko trail. Both were organized for the first time by local SMAX Feidipidis runners group. The route itself was very familiar for me as I did several runs there.

0,0k at 650m - Pournarokastro, start and finish of the race. The small race started from the square with concrete road in direction to Refuge (while the big one in opposite direction with a path). It followed the road (later dirt) until small church.

2,5k at 800m - Church. Bigger dirt road follows straight, but race's route turned right to smaller dirt road, very soon becoming more like a wide path. The grade also got a bit more demanding almost forcing to power hike.
Until this point I was running with one more guy (I didnt know him) way ahead of the rest of the group. On the steeper climb he started to leave me behind a bit. I didnt want to overdo it so I just kept with my steady effort.

3,3k at 900m - Small water station on crossroads. As I was carrying small bottle with me, I didnt bother to stop and continued on. Next section was back on main wide dirt road and grade got much lighter again. I continued with my steady pace staying about 90-100s behind the leader.

7,2k at 1180m - After passing another water station and running through a bit of forested area, route climbed to about 1200m altitude. Here the road got much worse, much steeper, full of bigger rocks. At that point the leader had to be at least 3min ahead, but I couldnt do much about it since I was bearly staying on running side of things. I decided that I will cut some of turns with hiking paths in order to mix up a bit my running routine. It meant more pounding on my quads, but allowed me to catch some breath...

8,7k at 1390m - End of cuts and small spring. I got seriously hot at this point and I drunk all my water, so I decided to stop for a sec, drink some nice cold water and refill my bottle. I think I started to catch up to the leader at some point on the cuts, but was not really sure. Also I could see some runners behind me that I calculated couldnt be more that 5-6min.
Next section was fairly flat and then actually descent next to the refuge and the only true aid station next to the spring

9,5k at 1350m - Aid station. Since I just refilled my bottle and since the race was rather fast, I did even stop. Also, just before the station, I had a nice view to the path we were about to start the descent and I saw the leader there. He still was way in front, but it seemed like ~2min max, so off I went with full speed downhill :-D

10,5k at 1170m - Descending the path. It's quite technical section with narrow path full of loose rocks, but I knew this section very well from all the past runs. I guess it gave me quite an advantage since I was catching on the leader pretty fast!

12,0k at 890m - End of narrow path and water station. Crazy descent was gone, I closed on the leader very nicely and could see him only ~50m in front. Again I didnt stop at the station and just run through it following him. Few meters on concrete road and back on some cuts with stone paths. This is where I caught him and we were running together until dirt road.

12,6k at 790m - Dirt road. Only ~2k left, mostly with dirt road. I think we were both really exhausted and none of us wanted to start finish so early, so we just settled on semi-fast running knowing no one else in nowhere near us. At last cutback I really went fast while other guy just couldnt hold the pace. This is where I left him about 100-150m behind and he just gave up. Last 1k I ran fairly comfortably and couldnt see him following me.

14,6k at 650m - Finish in Pournarokastro. My official time (although there were no electronic chips) was 1:28:18! Really nice! I finally finished ~1min in front of the second guy (whose name by the way was Fotis) and more than 15min from the 3rd guy!!! Cool :-D My first win ever :-D