GDANSK (15.08.16)
My 7th race of the challenge was the Solidarnosci Marathon in Gdansk, Poland on August 15th. Prior to the race I'd interviewed Mira from Warsaw about what it was like to live there with ME. Whilst it didn't make for optimistic reading, it did show that there was a need to try to bring about a community where people could talk and support each other. With this in mind I set up Poland's first online ME support group, which now has around 50 members. It's a start and hopefully will lead to a charity or community group in the future who can lobby their government for research funding. Away from this I had contact with Dziennik Baltycki who were keen to feature the challenge but unfortunately weren't able to follow through. In better news the sponsorship kept rolling in and I was well over £4K raised for Invest In ME and their fantastic biomedical ME research projects.
In any case, I felt well supported by those in our new group and of course my other followers/friends as I landed in Poland for my third race of the year. Picking up my race number at the European Solidarity Center in Gdansk, it was clear that to the people of Poland, the race signified an important part of their history. I was one of nearly 800 finishers taking part in the annual race to commemorate the deaths of protestors against government price increases in 1970 and the subsequent rise of working people against the communist regime. Wreaths were laid at the memorial in Gdynia prior to the race and speeches were loudly applauded before we took to the line for the out-and-back course from the town, through Sopot to Gdansk old town.
Start
Starting at 9.30am the gun went off and I decided to see how long I could stay with the trio of 4 hour pace-makers as we turned down towards the centre of Gdynia and the clouds started to disappear. Much of the first hour was spent running alongside two lads who had orange balloons with '3.59' written in biro on them tethered to their hats and a girl with bunny ears whose balloon was repeatedly buffetting me in the head as I ran. There wasn't much of a crowd lining the way, but just a fair few Solidarnosci Polish flags hanging off the shops and buildings as we climbed back towards the start line and off south towards Sopot. I was struck by how many older guys there were running the race, not for the first time when I've been running abroad. But I'm guessing many of these chaps were involved in the 1970 or 1980 protests and this has a deeper significance to them. Trying to avoid the boredom of the dual carriageway I started to imagine what they might have seen and how many of these races they might have finished. I was pretty conservative with grabbing bottled water in the early part, there was a decent amount of cloud cover and heading into 10 miles I felt strong so no need to over hydrate I thought. All pedestrian, tram and traffic crossings were well-manned with smiling young stewards and scowling gun-packing police which was impressive given the distance and the relatively small number of runners involved.
Middle
Moving through Sopot, which is a bit more aesthetically pleasing than Gdynia, we soon arrived on the outside of Gdansk and the clouds had sadly evaporated. It was getting hot and although I'd broken away from the pack of the pacemakers where I was getting tripped and boxed in a bit, they'd cranked the speed up and I'd started to get a bit concerned. At the half-way mark of the race my watch ticked over to exactly 2hrs and I started (perhaps foolishly) that there was an outside chance of beating my Dublin 3.59 PB. The heat was starting to take it's toll at 15 miles and I grabbed a dextra energy drink from the water station having just run through a fire department sprinkler set on the side of the road. Looking back I think this was a bit of a mistake and turning point as the syrupy squash seemed to turn my stomach quickly, making me feel heavy and generally a bit rough. My pace had dropped and I got to experience that familiar anguish of seeing the balloons bob away in the distance as I try to quickly re-evaluate my goal for the race. Getting to mile 17 and my stomach seemed to wash and I was bent double on the verge heaving up the nasty liquid from earlier. Usually when you're sick you feel better pretty quickly but in this instance I had an empty stomach and little in the way of energy so needed to get to the next stop to refuel on bananas and water. I'd then gotten from a steady jog to something resembling running and still with hope of getting off the course in under 4.15 and out of any danger of sunstroke/exhaustion. There was some decent support towards the 19 mile mark with kids high-fiving and their parents shouting 'bravo' and waving clappers and rattles as I tried to dig deep.
End
At mile 21 I had to stop briefly to allow a tram to pass across the course, I glared at the police for not halting it as I know it'll be tough to get going again. We appeared to be heading away from Gdansk and doubling back, the elite runners were passing us on the other side and we clapped them as we overlapped. I tried to calculate some finish times to keep my mind occupied as there wasn't many runners around me at this point. Each mile seemed to take an eternity but I rewarded myself with some rather soggy jelly beans as they came and went. The outskirts of Gdansk and it's industrial views were pretty uninspiring but soon fade into a nice looking park (Ronald Reagan Park in fact) and more smiling faces. Back onto the main route into central Gdansk I could see the cranes and shipyard that I'd visited the day before and know it can't be more than 2 miles away. At this point I was running a mile and then walking a minute to try and avoid any last minute disasters that would prevent me from finishing. The sun had got me to be fair, I was pretty drained and looking forward to sitting under a parasol with a chilled Tyskie. Relief hit as we turned past the Solidarity centre a mile from home and over the cobbles (groan), through the markets and towards the old town finish. There was more clapping and a nice buzz as I turned off my ipod to soak in that last 5 minutes or so. I could hear the Polish P.A. in the distance as we headed left and down the Dlugi Targ main street past the pretty cool clock tower and Neptune's fountain. I spotted Cat in the crowd who snapped me with a mix of a grimace and smiles, chucking me my Invest In ME flag to parade over the last few hundred yards. I know there'll be a few camera flashes going off and it feels like a decent idea to try to raise awareness (I never know quite what to do at the end anyway!). I'm over the line, medal draped, staggering towards the exit and relieved I've made it round, especially when I find out that a whopping 10% of runners didn't finish. A bit of a punishing race but as expected given the time of the year, it's a Summer PB and the training had paid off for the most part.
Pics
Gallery Pics Here
Weather
Started cloudy before blue skies and a dry heat of around 26-27C
Ratings
In any case, I felt well supported by those in our new group and of course my other followers/friends as I landed in Poland for my third race of the year. Picking up my race number at the European Solidarity Center in Gdansk, it was clear that to the people of Poland, the race signified an important part of their history. I was one of nearly 800 finishers taking part in the annual race to commemorate the deaths of protestors against government price increases in 1970 and the subsequent rise of working people against the communist regime. Wreaths were laid at the memorial in Gdynia prior to the race and speeches were loudly applauded before we took to the line for the out-and-back course from the town, through Sopot to Gdansk old town.
Start
Starting at 9.30am the gun went off and I decided to see how long I could stay with the trio of 4 hour pace-makers as we turned down towards the centre of Gdynia and the clouds started to disappear. Much of the first hour was spent running alongside two lads who had orange balloons with '3.59' written in biro on them tethered to their hats and a girl with bunny ears whose balloon was repeatedly buffetting me in the head as I ran. There wasn't much of a crowd lining the way, but just a fair few Solidarnosci Polish flags hanging off the shops and buildings as we climbed back towards the start line and off south towards Sopot. I was struck by how many older guys there were running the race, not for the first time when I've been running abroad. But I'm guessing many of these chaps were involved in the 1970 or 1980 protests and this has a deeper significance to them. Trying to avoid the boredom of the dual carriageway I started to imagine what they might have seen and how many of these races they might have finished. I was pretty conservative with grabbing bottled water in the early part, there was a decent amount of cloud cover and heading into 10 miles I felt strong so no need to over hydrate I thought. All pedestrian, tram and traffic crossings were well-manned with smiling young stewards and scowling gun-packing police which was impressive given the distance and the relatively small number of runners involved.
Middle
Moving through Sopot, which is a bit more aesthetically pleasing than Gdynia, we soon arrived on the outside of Gdansk and the clouds had sadly evaporated. It was getting hot and although I'd broken away from the pack of the pacemakers where I was getting tripped and boxed in a bit, they'd cranked the speed up and I'd started to get a bit concerned. At the half-way mark of the race my watch ticked over to exactly 2hrs and I started (perhaps foolishly) that there was an outside chance of beating my Dublin 3.59 PB. The heat was starting to take it's toll at 15 miles and I grabbed a dextra energy drink from the water station having just run through a fire department sprinkler set on the side of the road. Looking back I think this was a bit of a mistake and turning point as the syrupy squash seemed to turn my stomach quickly, making me feel heavy and generally a bit rough. My pace had dropped and I got to experience that familiar anguish of seeing the balloons bob away in the distance as I try to quickly re-evaluate my goal for the race. Getting to mile 17 and my stomach seemed to wash and I was bent double on the verge heaving up the nasty liquid from earlier. Usually when you're sick you feel better pretty quickly but in this instance I had an empty stomach and little in the way of energy so needed to get to the next stop to refuel on bananas and water. I'd then gotten from a steady jog to something resembling running and still with hope of getting off the course in under 4.15 and out of any danger of sunstroke/exhaustion. There was some decent support towards the 19 mile mark with kids high-fiving and their parents shouting 'bravo' and waving clappers and rattles as I tried to dig deep.
End
At mile 21 I had to stop briefly to allow a tram to pass across the course, I glared at the police for not halting it as I know it'll be tough to get going again. We appeared to be heading away from Gdansk and doubling back, the elite runners were passing us on the other side and we clapped them as we overlapped. I tried to calculate some finish times to keep my mind occupied as there wasn't many runners around me at this point. Each mile seemed to take an eternity but I rewarded myself with some rather soggy jelly beans as they came and went. The outskirts of Gdansk and it's industrial views were pretty uninspiring but soon fade into a nice looking park (Ronald Reagan Park in fact) and more smiling faces. Back onto the main route into central Gdansk I could see the cranes and shipyard that I'd visited the day before and know it can't be more than 2 miles away. At this point I was running a mile and then walking a minute to try and avoid any last minute disasters that would prevent me from finishing. The sun had got me to be fair, I was pretty drained and looking forward to sitting under a parasol with a chilled Tyskie. Relief hit as we turned past the Solidarity centre a mile from home and over the cobbles (groan), through the markets and towards the old town finish. There was more clapping and a nice buzz as I turned off my ipod to soak in that last 5 minutes or so. I could hear the Polish P.A. in the distance as we headed left and down the Dlugi Targ main street past the pretty cool clock tower and Neptune's fountain. I spotted Cat in the crowd who snapped me with a mix of a grimace and smiles, chucking me my Invest In ME flag to parade over the last few hundred yards. I know there'll be a few camera flashes going off and it feels like a decent idea to try to raise awareness (I never know quite what to do at the end anyway!). I'm over the line, medal draped, staggering towards the exit and relieved I've made it round, especially when I find out that a whopping 10% of runners didn't finish. A bit of a punishing race but as expected given the time of the year, it's a Summer PB and the training had paid off for the most part.
Pics
Gallery Pics Here
Weather
Started cloudy before blue skies and a dry heat of around 26-27C
Ratings
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