Dzień dobry from Warsaw (well, I’m back home now, but I did start thinking about this blog post and scribbling when I was out there, so it still counts).

I’m fortunate that I get to do a little bit of travelling with my work and having spent the last few years in my little studio at home, it’s been great to get back out and spend time with colleagues in person. I find it quite energizing and it’s just as well that I do because last week I needed all the energy I could get for week 3 of training, including the longest, long run so far.  It was my first trip to Warsaw and like Madrid a few weeks ago, I’m hoping it won’t be my last. I was working Wednesday through until Friday lunchtime (we get Friday afternoons off during the summer – ‘Summer Fridays’ are the best!) and then I decided to stay on for a bit sightseeing, coming back early (very early) on Sunday morning.  

I had to move some of the training sessions around a bit with Wednesday effectively being a ‘rest day’ due to the travelling and work but as you’ll see, I think I more than made up for it! According to my plan, I had a 5 mile easy run to do on Thursday so got out nice and early for a route that took in the beautiful Saxon Gardens (the oldest public park in the city), down towards the towering (and polarising) Palace of Culture and Science and then back along to the gorgeous Old Town where I was staying…and straight into an amazing steam room and swimming pool that was a wee bit different to what I’m used to at my local leisure centre. My room had a balcony within a courtyard which was not only great to work from, it was perfect for washing and drying out my running gear…although it slightly lowered the tone of the neighbourhood. Hey, you can take the boy out of Fife…   

Fridays are rest days and a bit of time to recover before Saturday’s 9 miler would’ve made a lot of sense. Dear reader, I must confess…I did not rest. From the Castle in the Old Town you can see across the river towards the stunning Stadion Narodowy and I’m a big fan of stadiums…I like them more than rest days. So up early again, and like Madrid, the streets of the Old Town that were bustling the previous evening, were pretty much empty and I had the place to myself as I made my way down to the Vistula River. The stadium is built on a platform that makes it visible for miles around, but at mid-level there’s a massive concourse that is exactly 1km loop – it’s even marked out for cyclists, runners and skaters (and there was plenty of all three). So a quick loop, few photos and then back across the bridge and along the Vistula which has cycle paths and pedestrian lanes all the way along it back to the Old Town. Stunning run on a stunning morning and even at 7am it was hot. So OF COURSE, I had to cool down in that pool again and then go for a nice (big) breakfast.  

After finishing up work at lunchtime I checked out of the amazing hotel with their equally amazing Spa and made my way to a more modest abode for the next two nights, well positioned not far from the Palace of Culture and Science with a straight road down towards the stadium (yes, I’d go there again…two more times) and the parkrun that I’d be doing the next day.  That was essentially the start of a day of walking. I walked everywhere. Down to the Łazienki Royal Park (Warsaw’s biggest park and yes, I’ll use the word stunning once more), around the outside of the Legia Warsaw stadium, trips into the Old Town for a wander round Saxon Park (and to look longingly through the windows of the old hotel) into the market square for dinner and then a nice walk back to the Spa less, but very comfortable new hotel. As I look at the Apple Watch entry for Friday it tells me I did 43,776 steps and covered 34.8km. A relaxing, easy ‘rest day’…

Saturday morning I wake up early with a rare, sensible thought to fuel and hydrate before heading out. Bananas, Haribo bears, a Mars bar and some water later and I’m walking back down toward the Nardowy which is a stone’s throw from the Park Skaryszewski, the location of the city’s 1^st parkrun, Warszawa-Praga.  It’s certainly the first time I’ve ever walked to parkrun past a nightclub that was still in full flow at 8am and I felt for the neighbours living upstairs from the clearly non-soundproofed venue. In hindsight, as nice as the walk was, I’m not sure I needed a 2 mile warm up in that heat, especially when I discovered the bus later in the day and it cost me the grand sum of 40p!  I said hello and got my photo with the lovely volunteer team and spoke to a few fellow tourists from South Africa and Ireland. I’m not saying anything revelatory here, but the social side of parkrun is brilliant, you rock up to a park as a complete stranger and within a few minutes you get chatting to other runners. I ended up running with Ronan who was on holiday and we had a good blether about marathons and training as we ran round and I soaked up all the advice I could. I probably ran a bit quicker than I was intending (25.31) and it caught up with me later in the run, but I enjoy parkrun far more when I’m running with someone. A flat, potentially fast route of two and half loops with a nice long straight to finish…along with a wee bit of madeira cake to top up the fuel. 

Waving goodbye to the team and runners in Skaryszewski park, another loop of the stadium (I’d go back later in the day for the full tour) and then south along the Vistula towards the Legia stadium that sits on the edge of the park. The heat along the river was brutal and I had to call on an emergency handful of congealed Haribo bears. Once in the park, the tree cover made it a bit easier although looking at the mile splits you can see me started to fade from 5 onwards. It certainly wasn’t conversational pace by the end so I know I’ll need to pace the longer runs better and I might need to stop trying to combine a parkrun into them, but I’ll see how it goes. There was a track beside the Legia sports centre, so a lap of that was added in, before taking in some of the landmarks of the park including the Chopin statue and finishing in the neighbouring Ujazdowski park to make sure Strava didn’t trick me out of my nine miles with an 8.9! 

Devastated to find that the ice cream kiosk that I’ve strategically finished at is still not open, so headed to a shop where I bought about 5 litres of drinks to keep me company on the 2 mile walk back to the hotel. So 13 miles in the bank…before doing even more walking and sightseeing for the rest of the day. As I climbed into my bed on Saturday night ahead of a 3am alarm call, my watch told me we’d clocked up 49,596 and a ridiculous 42.3km…so there’s potentially a marathon in these chicken legs!  Sunday? Sunday was definitely a rest day.

Are you still here? Wow, you deserve a medal for getting through this one, thanks for sticking with me!  The patella straps for the knees are definitely working. It might be placebo, it might be a ‘comfort blanket’, but they feel…better. There’s still discomfort but they seem to give me a bit more support and reassurance, so we will stick with them.  Week 4 includes my first race in a few years, the Milnathort Dash. It’s a great race organised by a local club and has an amazing post race buffet that usually includes some home baking. The route, especially in the heat, is a toughie, big uphill start (where they have a prize for the King and Queen of the Hill) and challenging first half, then an easier downhill second half. I have no plans to race it but I will try to run at a tempo a bit quicker than training runs (the plan fits perfectly, as a 5m tempo is included this week)…and I’ll try not to eat too much at the buffet. But I like buffets even more than I like stadiums, so no promises 😊