02/07/2026
🔥 I have the privilege of having participated 5 times in the iconic ultra-distance race, the Olympus Ultra.
⛰️ 71 kilometers. 5,500 meters of positive altitude gain. A race that unfolds on some of the most technical, brutal, and historic trails of the Mythical Mountain.
👉 The most breathtaking and psychologically relentless point comes after the 40th kilometer. Having already covered more than half of the race’s total elevation, you suddenly find yourself low, at 1,330 meters. You look up, and you know what lies ahead… A lunar landscape, with rocks scorching under the alpine sun and snow patches testifying to a harsh winter; a continuous, never-ending 6-kilometer climb (Xerolaki) that shoots you up first to the Christakis Refuge (2,550m) and then to the alpine ridge of Skolio (2,910m).
⚡ From the stifling, humid heat of the lower forested trails, to the freezing breeze and blinding radiation of the Alpine zone. Up there, every runner fights a dual battle: first against the clock, and then against human nature itself.
🏃♂️ When you step onto Olympus, you don’t just run on a mountain. You run on an ancient seabed, which glaciers and tectonic plates violently lifted up to 3,000 meters. These hard, sharp, and steep limestone rocks are unforgiving; they test gear to the tearing point and shatter your quadriceps with every single step.
⛰️ The experience, as always, remains indelible, and the aftertaste truly unique
🥾 A Pitstop in History:
1786: Jacques Balmat steps onto the highest peak of the Alps, Mont Blanc. The dawn of technical mountaineering is a fact.
1855: The Second French Empire turns its gaze toward Olympus. Archaeologist Léon Heuzey studies its geography and designs the first detailed map of the mountain (1:275,000 scale). Since then, the mountain became a magnet for European mountaineers, naturalists, and adventure seekers.
1913: The secret unlocks. Two Swiss philhellenes, Frédéric Boissonnas and Daniel Baud-Bovy, guided by the legendary hunter and logger from Litochoro, Christos Kakkalos, achieve the “impossible”: they reach the summit of the Mythical Mountain.
⛰️ ⛰️ Where the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires once clashed with Cronus and the Titans, an endless sea stretched out 200 million years ago.
⛰️🏃♂️ Today, on this upright, sculpted seabed, every ultra runner comes like a small pebble of history to measure themselves against the elements and their own self!
👏 Congratulations to everyone who dared and won, but also to those who lost a battle but not the war.
🔥 In ultra trail running, no matter who you are, no matter how hard or how many years you have trained, nobody guarantees that you will reach the finish line.
