Running in Krakow: just follow the Vistula River!

Krakow, Poland, is a great city to visit by foot, but almost too small to make a run really worth. As soon as I crossed the river on my way from the airport to downtown, I was drawn by the imposing Vistula River and biking lane on both banks.

The Vistula crosses all Poland, starting from the South, on the border with the Czech Republic and Solvakia, to the Baltic Sea in the North. In a S shape, it crosses Krakow from West to East then Warsaw, the Capital, from East to West. So, in Krakow, the right bank is on the South side of the river, and left bank on the North side. This is an important detail for my recommendations below.

[Photo credit: By Kmusser - Own work, Elevation data from SRTM, drainage basin boundary from USGS, all other features from Natural Earth., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24543621]

Indeed, if you run from downtown, the bike path on the left side, longing downtown, goes a couple of mile on the East side, but ends abruptly on the West side, under this monastery, whose fortifications drop right into the river.

On the right/South side though, I was able to go for 8 miles, up to a remarkable site, a sport center hosting in particular white water kayaking competition at the World level!

An ingenious lock is diverting and storing water from the flat river and releasing it in a narrow corridor to simulate torrents you only find in mountains. Clever!

Before getting to the sport center, you'll pass a big church perched on the ridge:

As opposed to this long stretch, westbound (and I believe it keeps going beyond these 8 miles), the bike path ends quickly on the right bank, eastbound from downtown, and slightly further on the left side, with a connection to additional paved bike paths getting through the suburbs.

The end of the trail on the right bank on the East side of the city (you can cross over the dam you see across the river on that picture):

And, about one mile farther, on the left bank:

You'll pass quite a few bridges on the way:

We were only in town for 4 days but I managed to run 4 times. Here is one of my 3 16-mile runs on the right side, in Strava:

and the corresponding 3D flyover from Relive.cc(click on the picture below):

Overall, an amazing opportunity to log a few miles without any traffic other than pedestrians and cyclists. I must add, although it's obvious on these pictures, that the area is very green!

Global Running Day: one new runner at a time!

Another belated post, 3 weeks have passed since this event occurred, time flies when you work hard while traveling around the world... even a few days of time off in Poland with the family didn't help! But, as the saying goes, better late than never, and for my own records at a minimum.

Global Running Day, yet another of these daily celebrations which we don't have enough days in a year to all fit! But what is it exactly?

We have to thank Wikipedia for so much information (not fake news!) made available at our finger prints. I've always liked the concept but didn't remember how many years it did... run! Here you are, it has been 9 years.

Global Running Day is a day that celebrates the sport of running. It is held annually on the first Wednesday of June.[1] Participants of all ages and abilities pledge to take part in some type of running activity by submitting their names through the Global Running Day website. Global Running Day 2018 is scheduled for June 6.
Global Running Day was formerly known as National Running Day and began in the United States. The first event was in 2009.
The inaugural Global Running Day was held on June 1, 2016. More than 2.5 million people from 177 countries pledged to run more than 9.2 million miles. New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio, declared June 1, 2016 to be Global Running Day in the City of New York.[3] 2014 Boston Marathon winner Meb Keflezighi led a group run from the Boston Run Base,[4] and the Atlanta Track Club organized a “run around the clock” event, where at least one person from the Atlanta metro area would be running every hour of Global Running Day.

Last year I organized a celebration at the IBM location I'd Been Moved to (yes, being moved is something so frequent in our company that some people came up with this alternative acronym meaning a while ago...).

As a group we logged 306 miles on June 6, 2017 so I set the hefty goal of 400 miles this year. I'm not sure what happened this year, the weather wasn't even too hot, but we came up rather short with 211 miles this time.

Now, at the running clinic I organized, there were a handful of experienced runners, even one who knew Michael Wardian and Jim Wamsley (last week, Jim broke the Western States 100-mile course record with an amazing time of 14 hours and 30 minute, shaving off 15 minutes from the previous record, totally mind blowing!). [Photo credits: Henry Wang, IBM]

On the other end of the spectrum, there was a colleague whose husband has organized a trip to Patagonia at the end of the year. She wanted to get ready for this 6-day trek by getting back in shape and taking on running. Perfect timing and it was refreshing to get questions on these initial interrogations which every new runner has, such as breathing, stride, posture, pace, where to run, where to buy shoes and which shoes. Many of the things we take for granted after running for several years.

I ran along her for her first 1.5 miles, stopping twice to let her catch her breath and celebrating this key initial milestone.

I went back on our site 2.2-mile loop and ended up with 15 miles before having to rush to another meeting but very happy to have witnessed the birth of a new runner!

Hope you had a great celebration for that day yourself, 3 weeks ago, and looking forward to seeing the birth of many more runners before we celebrate the 10th anniversary of Global Running Day!