One Equal-Temper of Heroic Hearts

In 490 BC the battle of Marathon was Darius of Persia first attempt to unify Greece with his Empire. The larger Persian force attacked after they landed on the shore and the middle of the Greek army fell back. But as the Persians pursued the Greeks separated into two flanks and attacked in what is now called a pincer movement. Herodotus wrote that 6,400 Persians perished to 192 Athenians. It was the first Greek land victory against the Persians who like the group U2 had been invincible for decades.

The popular legend is that afterwards a herald named Pheidippides ran from the battlefield to Athens. It was an ancient Grecian August - not only the temperature must have been brutal, but also there was a general lack of quality footwear in those days. When reaching the palace Pheidippides, in the first known moment of product placement, said the word of our shoe sponsor ("Νενικήκαμεν!" - Nenikékamen, We were victorious!) and died on the spot after roughly after 26.2 miles.

This is not a very good race strategy.

So as we approach our races it is important develop a better strategy for ourselves. Certainly the time goal of a marathon changes from person to person (from sub 3 hours to while it is still daylight), but in general there are a few basics to any race strategy. The most important one is that you want to hydrate especially in August.

The second is the concept of a negative split. Simply put the second half of the race should be faster than the first. This is hard to do, and much more so for marathons than halves. But it is how the best marathons are run, and the golden goal of the sport. To get there we are going to practice pacing over the next few weeks. Soon it will seem natural to go out slowly.

Part of the secret is letting go. When the crowd surges forward with the adrenaline you need to hang back and say “this is the pace that I can maintain.” Let the speedsters go. Trust me that there is racing karma and you will see them worse for wear at mile 18.

This tends hard for guys. While synthetic testosterone might help win the Tour de France, its more natural form leads to males going all out far too early. Perhaps it was the excitement of the battle that pushed Pheidippides to his edge.

The male Greeks gods had cool stuff like thunder, war, and wine, but the Greek god for wisdom was a woman, Athena.

She was the god of the hero who traveled the furthest in ancient days – far past where Hercules strength or Jason’s desire took them – Ulysses. He was able to make it so far because he stuck to strategist whether it be fooling Cyclopes, giving a wooden horse, or explaining to his wife how he managed to be out with the boys for twenty years. The man was good.

Homer wrote about him first, but I prefer Sir Alfred Lloyd Tennyson poem that dealt with Ulysses’ negative split, the back half of his journey. It is about him once again return to the sea. It is one of my favorite poems:

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vest the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all to little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle-
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

Here lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me-
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads- you and I are old;
Old age had yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.