Sunday the 10th of November 2019, 7.15 a.m

You don’t fit in the metro compartments even though it’s Sunday.
Your fellow travellers are all with a smile and in a good mood. 
“Oxymoron” you think… This doesn’t happen often.
You suspect that the races that are about to start “hide” a secret.
“Such a good mood isn’t justified on a Sunday morning” you think again.
You compete in the 5 km. Blog 6, grey colour. Like the sky that doesn’t seem to share the crowd’s mood.
The first rain drops fall before the first kilometer is completed while your playlist plays Adrenaline.
“Coincidental?” you think again. 
You pass the finish line soaked by the rain and the emotions.
An hour later you return to the inside of the Panathenaic Stadium to capture “the heroes with the cape”.
The weather continues its whims but no one leaves. 
At a certain moment your eye catches this hug.
You raise the camera, you snap the shot and hear a voice “My son!”
And one more time, hugs from the young man to the Marathon runner who has just finished.

Do you understand now why the people are in a good mood today?
Because within every participant in the Marathon race there hides a hero.
A real hero filled with courage, persistence and strength.
“Your” hero! Even if you meet him for the first time.
And then your eyes water one more time.
And this time it’s not from the rain…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h9CtTCXDYs

by Natassa Pagani, 13 Nov 2019
Founder of Athenian Street Stories I Amateur photographer & member of Athenian Street Stories photography team.

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