In 1989, I received an invitation to participate in a race commemorating Phiedippides' run from Athens to Sparta, Greece. Known as Spartathlon, it covers approximately 250-kilometers. The race name was created for the connection among Sparta, Athens and London.

British military officers studied the route described by the Greek historian Herodotus, to confirm its accuracy. They ran between the two former city states, according to his account, in under 36 hours, to see if the account they had read was possible. The following year, they created a running event to honor Phiedippides.

Eventually, I would race in the event 4 times. I placed 4th and had a dog join me at Acro Corinth and stay with me for over 40-kilometers the first year. I also slipped on the wet marble as I approached the statue of King Leonidas and slid into its base. The mayor came over and was going to help me up, but I screamed at him to leave me alone. Finally, he understood that by helping me up I would have been disqualified and left me get up, under my own power and touch the toe of the King. In 1990, I raced Finnish runner Seppo Leinonen for 6th in an epic battle, but one that left me feeling uneasy, because I thought I should just have run it in with him, as the top 3 places were already decided.

In 1992, I was forced off the road prior to reaching Acro Corinth by an oncoming truck and I smashed my toes into a rock. At about 100-kilometers, Seppo came up behind me and asked me to run to Sparta with him. With my toes bleeding, I gladly accepted his request. At that point we were 7th and 8th in the standings. But together we moved up and reached 3rd place and finished in a tie, with his son at his side and Alex Clainos (the son of George, the security director for the race) at my side.

In my 4th appearance, once again I placed 4th. That night at the awards ceremony in Sparta, Seppo came over to me and told me I had finished in the WORST possible place again, meaning just outside of the top 3.

While attending the Boston Marathon Expo in 2009, I met Dimitri Kyriakides, whose father had won Boston in 1946, the 50^th running. He asked me if I had ever run in Greece and I told him of my experiences at Spartathlon. He was impressed and asked me to come to the 2010 of the Athens Classic Marathon. I told him I would come to the 2009 version and run my 100^th career marathon and I did. We met each other at a ceremony in Boston two nights before the 2010 Boston Marathon.

I told him I was running the race, then driving back to the start in Hopkinton and running it again with the race director, Dave McGilliivray. That night we met in the hotel lobby and he asked me if I had finished the 2^nd one. When I told him that I did, he asked if I had gotten a 2^nd finisher’s medal. When I told him that I had and was going to give it to a friend dying of cancer, he seemed disappointed. I asked him what was on his mind and he confided that the Mayor of Marathon wanted the medal placed in the Battle of Marathon Museum. When I told him I intended to give the medal to my friend, but he could have mine, he was elated. Following opening ceremonies for the Athens Classic Marathon, I delivered and presented the medal to the Mayor of Marathon and the curator of the museum, along with my uniform, the first USA uniform worn by an ultra runner, the Wigwam socks I wore one year, bearing the American flag, my Spartathlon uniform and gifts from the Mayor of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, my hometown.