Czech once again

Landed in Prague and what a difference. You could feel the spring, almost summer. Temperature about 20 and more, sunny, refreshing breeze. Nice weekend in front of us (maybe running in such a condition would be challenging but besides that… no complaints). Taxi into Old City to leave our luggage in the hotel (not best but will do, in the heart of Old Town) and of for walk. This time we were staying in the different part of the town. That was most rewarding. Close to all places we wanted to visit and as well allowed us to discover different places which we never have reached being in Prague last year…

Even arriving to Old Town after 6 PM we still had plenty time to enjoy Prague that evening. Walk towards Main Square and we found couple of interesting museums to visit. Found nice shop with souvenirs (actually different to ones offered in all other places). Have checked how far would be from our hotel to marathon start line (whole 600 m, you can’t get wrong with that). And long walk around Old Town, looking for restaurant with traditional Czech food and Kozel beer. ‘Stare Casy’, not far from our hotel. Food was good, beer better (that night I skipped the beer but had one after marathon). Spicy goulash with knedliki. That was really nice evening. Weather nice, great surroundings, it was just beginning but we already knew that visit will be too short. Came back to our room to take a rest. Realised that our room is nice but cosy, not to mention about fourth floor. I was planning to go for a small run in the morning before Bozena will get up and actually was able to do that. We decided to have nice, big breakfast in one of the restaurants on the way to marathon expo. Couldn’t wait to see some of my running buddies from Runczech. Expo was in the same place as last year, in Exhibition Centre. Size-wise similar to Dublin marathon expo but definitely more additional attractions. If you don’t know or haven’t seen yet unihock or poll dancing (sport not erotica thing) or rock climbing expo was place to go. As usual plenty boots with running gear (couldn’t resist buying Adidas shoes – Prague Marathon version) and nutritions. Opportunity to talk to promoters of other marathons. Question almost always same: ‘Would you consider allowing international runner to pace your marathon?’ From these discussions I know that for example: Athens marathon is not using pacers and Amsterdam marathon has own pacing team so it is hard to get that job. But, I have left my details to those who said that they would consider new member of the pacing team. Now, I will wait for any info from them. No high hopes but never know. It was almost 1 PM and all pacers should be introduce to runners now. Almost whole pacing team went on the stage to give small pep-talk and tell runners who will be pacing what time. As I was called ‘European pacemaker’ I got little bit more ‘air time’. I was ask to tell everybody about my running adventure and pacing and give any advise to to participants. That was kind of strange feeling but I thought my ‘small speech’ wasn’t too bad. Yep, I thought so but in the evening I have watched the video taken by Bozena and it was terrible. Need to work on that. But we had a ball on that stage. Laughing, shouting, trying to stop our ‘leader’ who was very, very talkative over the mic. Trying to remind him that he told us that we all should say literally 3 words. We did that, Michal not. Cause of him it took much longer that it should be. Our official marathon training session was in danger of being delayed. We had to go back to ‘Running Mall’ (Runczech official location) cause trying was starting there. I literally made it two minutes before time. We lost Martin on the way or he just got ‘Lost in Action’. We run without him then. Every year they are organising that training session for runners who would like to participate. Last year was much more runners cause the group from Beijing marathon joined us. This year their session was day before and according to Michal it was busy. Last year Prague marathon had one partner – Beijing, but it looks like marathon is growing and now they have new partner. And this is great one – Berlin marathon. That is now showing how Prague event is evolving. All going in the right direction. Still small-ish event. Over 12000 runners from which almost 9000 are running marathon rest marathon relay. They are saying that they could easily increase that number in total to 20 K but that would involve changing the route and move the event from surroundings of Old Town. Organisation great, plenty of marathons could use Prague as an example. Ok, just got of the topic, back, back… Official training. Usually it is just couple of km done in the park with some stretching exercises and some running ones. Same time this year. Little bit more running – 8 km (in addition to my 11 km in the morning) but laughing again. Met doctor Tomas who is running barefoot for ‘Doctors without borders’. Please support them if you can. Doing so much for kids and adults in countries where medical help is not available for all. By the way, Tomas got really great time, just above 3:50. You need to consider tram tracks and cobblestones which are the part of the marathon route.

Usually I’m not participate in official trainings and avoiding all that PR stunts surrounding marathons. But Prague is different. I just love being there, running. So, after training we have been invited by Bozena’s colleague for a lunch. We have visited highest restaurant in Czech capital which is in TV broadcasting tower. Would call it posh. Lunch and then some time to spent in Old City again. Relaxing during walk. Setting mind to run with others and trying to ‘tell’ my body to relax with pitstop thing next day. latter in the evening I had to prepare running gear. Everything needed to be ‘Made by Adidas’, as usual. Not favourite brand to run in but has to be done.

About marathon you can read in next post. This one will be just about tourists in Prague. After marathon we decided that we can rest little bit and walk around, buy some gifts and have dinner. Saw Macintosh museum – crap. Ohhh, we went to the concert. Must say that classic music was actually nice. Next day I went for recovery run. Brought back pacing flag to ‘Running Mall’. Explored new running routes. After run we had nice breakfast in hotel restaurant and spent last couple of hours on enjoying Old Town. We visited museum of sex. We went to gallery to see work of Mucha. Had a salad for lunch and with sadness we had to leave Prague. But we will come back next year and again… pacing.