Double Racing® -- running with a halftime – returned to Greece, Sat., Nov. 29, with Kostas Gelaouzos and Kalliopi Astropekaki emerging as the Greek national champions for 2014 by winning the men’s and women’s divisions respectively at the second annual Athens Double 15K.

Gelaouzos, who’s only 24, won the men’s race by finishing first in both the 10K and the 5K of the two-stage race, running 31:37 and 15:15 for an aggregate time of 46:52. His average pace per mile in the 10K had been 5:05, and he obviously had something left in reserve for the 5K as he ran 4:55 per mile! All in all, a very nice performance by a young man with a bright future as a distance runner.

The runner-up in the men’s race was Dimos Magginas, 33, who posted an aggregate time of 47:29 by running the 10K in 31:55 and the 5K in 15:34. Magginas had also finished second last year when his aggregate time was 46:43.

The third-place finisher on Saturday was Christos Kallias, 26, who was only fourth after the 10K, which he ran in 32:17, but he came storming back in the 5K, running 15:19, second fastest time on the day behind the 15:15 performance by Galaouzos, to post a combined time of 47:36.

Masters runner George Karavidas, 42, finished fourth with an aggregate time of 48:22 (32:16/16:06), which translated to a 90.70 score for the best age-graded performance of the day. 

Astropekaki, 33, who, like Gelaouzos, finished first in both stages of the race, was the women’s winner with an aggregate time of 55:01. She averaged 5:57 per mile in running the 10K in 36:58, and picked up her pace to 5:49 per mile in running the 5K in 18:03.

Panagiota Vlahaki, 23, was the runner-up in 56:20 as she ran the 10K in 37:48 and the 5K in 18:32.

Deniz Dimaki, 37, finished third with an aggregate time of 57:37 (38:50/18:47). She had been second in this race last year with an aggregate time of 55:25.

Konstantinos Poulios had been the men’s winner last year in the first Athens Double 15K in an aggregate time of 46:36, which remains the race record.

The women’s winner last year was Tina Kefalas, the Greek American who represented Greece in the marathon at the 2012 London Olympics and was instrumental in bringing Double Racing® to her ancestral homeland (she’s the producer of the Athens Double 15K) after she had won the women’s race in the 2012 Pleasanton Double, the first time the Double had ever been held in America. Kefalas won that inaugural Pleasanton Double in 54:03, which was then the world record, and her winning time in Athens last year, 53:26, remains the course record for the Athens Double. She did not run the Athens race this year.

Saturday’s race was held in the seaside community of Marathon, Greece, about 25 miles from Athens. As all serious runners know, it was Pheidippides, the hero of ancient Greece, whose fabled endurance feat became the inspiration for the modern marathon. He supposedly ran from Marathon to Athens in 490 BC to deliver news of the Greek victory over the Persians in the critical battle on the Plains of Marathon, proclaiming “Rejoice, we conquer” with literally his final breath as he expired the very next moment. Or so the story goes….  

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