Greek ultramarathon runner Yiannis Kouros has been called many things by his peers, running experts and the public: “The Running God,” “The Golden Greek,” “Modern Pheidippides,” “The Master of Pain,” “Unstoppable” and many others. And all these epithets are more than well-deserved.
Ultrarunning experts have also calculated the miles the 63-year-old Greek runner has run since high school and came to the conclusion that Kouros has covered the distance from the earth to the moon.
According to the website “Ultrarunning History,” the seasoned Greek athlete is the greatest ultrarunner of all time.
Kouros has broken more than 160 world records up to now — and perhaps most astoundingly, all of these remain unbroken. One of his peers, Canadian Trishal Cherns, has said, “There’s the elite, the world class, then there’s Yiannis.”
Kouros was born in Tripolis, Arkadia, Greece on February 13, 1956. Born into a poor, hard-disciplined family, he experienced a very tough childhood. He was only five when he was forced to perform manual labor to help the family economically.
He began running in a systematic manner at the age of 16 and soon devoted himself to long distance running, after his coach told him he was “too slow.” The hardships he had suffered as a child made Kouros a naturally tough, disciplined person who excelled in the punishing pursuit known as ultrarunning.
However, young Kouros had other interests and talents, too. He wrote 1,000 poems and became involved with music as well. He studied Byzantine and European music as well as singing.
He has released four records (two instrumental and two with vocals), writing all the lyrics and music himself. His poetry and music were inspired by Greek heroes such as King Leonidas and Greek Revolution fighter Theodoros Kolokotronis.
But Kouros’ true calling is undeniably ultramarathon running. He ran his first marathon at the age of 21 in 1977, clocking the very respectable time of 2:43:15. His times continued to improve, down to 2:25 in 1981.
He won the Athens Marathon in 1981. By 1983, the Greek runner had finished 25 marathons. He discovered soon, however, that he excelled far more at ultra distances, even longer than the traditional marathon.
It was that year that the Spartathlon started. The first such race – the distance from Marathon to Sparta, or 156 miles (251 km) – was run on September 30, 1983 with 45 starters. This was Kouros’ very first ultra-distance race. Event officials had estimated that the winner would arrive at Sparta in approximately 27 hours.
Kouros won with an official time of 21:53:42.
The Greek runner said that the English event sponsors refused to give him the cup, since they thought it was humanly impossible that a distance of 250 km could be covered in 21:50. However, as ultrarunning pioneer Dan Brannen declared, “He is the only runner for whom an accusation of cheating eventually became an honor.”
Kouros definitively proved that he had not cheated by returning to the race the next year, when he ran even faster, finishing in 20:25 — which has stood as a course record through to the present day.
In 1983 he also ran a three-day Ultramarathon in Austria and in 1984 he ran a six-day race in New York, covering a punishing 635 miles (1,030 km).
The Greek runner wrote about his experience in the New York race in his book The Six-Day Run of the Century. “I had a fear of remaining a vegetable for the rest of my days, as after 24 hours, I felt my body no longer operating and I was carrying it without its consent.
“I thought I would not be able to walk again, though I made a conscious decision to write history. To expiate myself, I saw it as a sacrifice in an ancient drama. I knew I was leaving something behind me,” he explained.
He then wrote about finishing the effort: “I was running very fast, and because my toes were bleeding very much, many believed I would have to drop out. There I experienced how important the mental attitude is.
“I come to a point where my body is almost dead. My mind has to take leadership… I reached the stage to look at my body from above, from outwards, I mean like an out-of-body experience. I mean that your body has surrendered and you see yourself from above and behind and you somehow guide your body ahead. I am talking about incredible moments,” the ultra marathoner says.
In November 1984, he went all the way to Australia to run a six-day race in the city of Colac and finished first there. He repeated his victory by winning the Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon in 1987, 1989 and 1990.
By 1990 Kouros had run in almost every ultramarathon held around the world. It was in that year that, because of the Greek state’s unwillingness to support his athletic endeavors, he was forced to emigrate to Australia, where he lived for ten years.
The ultrarunner returned to Greece to live in 2000 and continued running with great success, in Greece and abroad. It is indeed remarkable that in 2005, at the age of 49 in Australia’s “Cliff Young” six-day race he broke his own world record made fully 21 years earlier.
“In ultrarunning there are no real limits. One can go on and on,” Kouros has explained to interviewers. “I try to achieve something special in each race… What Pheidippides did, going to Sparta just for a message and bring back a message to the Athenians, I’d like to think of myself as a messenger.
The iconic Greek runner adds “I want to inspire, to give the message that something is doable. Everything is possible as far as I am concerned as long as you go for it.”
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The Athens Marathon is like no other on Earth. According to legend, it covers the same ground that the Athenian messenger Phiedippides ran when he brought news of victory from the battlefield of Marathon 2,500 years ago. When you run the Athens Marathon, you run in the very footsteps of the ancient gods and heros that gave birth to western civilization. The finish line is in Athens’ magnificent Olympic Stadium, the birthplace of the modern Olympic Games. Those who run the Athens Marathon say it is an experience they’ll never forget.