New friends

This post was long overdue… Even that in my head I had so many ideas and things to say about Prague Marathon. But I couldn’t just sit and write about that… That weekend was just brilliant. Prague, run, experience, new friends and prospect of coming back there next year…

In the previous post I have mentioned about the Prague experience. How nice is the city, where not to go if you want have something to eat for the dinner and now time to talk ‘business’. Day before marathon I have been asked to take part in pre-race run. This was organized for pacers to get know each other and for anyone who wanted to take part in ‘socializing’. Cause Prague Marathon is a partner marathon to Beijing one there was plenty of runners from China. Anyways… Arrived at the shop, got my flag and the pacer gear from Michal Vitu, kinda race organizer. I met some pacers. Martin Mahony, my 4 hours colleague. We ‘met’ previously on Facebook and I wanted to meet him in person. Cheeky lad. Last 4 hour pacer Michal Lojko was there just to pick up the gear and I met him actually next day. Just before marathon. Another marathoner from Poland. Together ‘Tres amigos’. For me it was first time as a pacers, Michal and Martin were not newbies. They have already run marathons as pacers. But we knew that we will have great fun running with all runners. And was hoping that runners will have a ball with us. Before run we took some photos together and the group photo. Missed that one – last visit to toilet before race, as usual wasn’t on the most important picture. Always the same 😉 After that we went to starting line or quite a bit from the starting line (still probably about 400 metres to line). We stood up before crowd and started to fooling around… We were very loud and everybody had fun but… as we have found out that wasn’t our 4 hours group, just the 4.15 group. Well, we had a ball. Now time to move up the line to get to our group. Decided that we will do that when the race will start. Straight after we started we have decided not to run together cause that would just create a huge crowd running besides each other. Needed to split that whole nice bunch of runners. So, after couple of kilometers we were running in three groups. Me in front, Martin in middle and Michal closing. Idea was to get everyone below 4 hours so I was pushing little bit faster (about 3:54 time) where Michal was exactly on time…

Must say that I was having such a nice time. There was no stres to get good time. It was all about having fun, talking to runners, joking, jumping, falling down and hugging Wife. I know one that I have never talked so much in my life during marathon run. Constantly chatting to runners, shouting to Martin and Michal. And cause of shouting to Martin and running backwards I tripped over street cone and almost fall down. With flag over my back that looks probably dangerous or at least runners were thinking that. Just heard ‘Ohhhh… are you alright? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa…’ Ok, that could happen. We were running around Prague Old Town. Going north of it, getting back, going south, getting back, staying on one right side of river bank then going over bridge to left side. That route allowed Bozena to see me couple of times, which was nice. At least for me cause I could give her a hug… probably to annoyence of my fellow runners. They wanted to finish below 4 hours and I was going back, disappearing for a moment and getting back to them. I know one, all runners who were running with me gave everything to keep up with 4 hours pace… I learned that you can run in Five fingers vibram shoes (saw couple of times runner running in them but never had chance to talk to them), I met woman who was after second stroke and she run first marathon after recovery (of course under supervision of doctors). Talk as well to lad from my hometown – Szczecin. He wanted to get sub 4 hours in his first ever marathon. And he did, under my supervision 😉 On the last straight, maybe 500 meters before finishing line I stood on the side encuraging runners to finish strong. I saw Grzegorz (lad from Szczecin) rushing in front of me comfortably for 3:57 time. That was very nice, felt very proud to see some of ‘my runners’ happy to reach thier goal. When I was applauding runners Martin arrived. We had still time for selfie and then Michal has appeared. Slowly we have cruised towards finishing line still trying to push the runners. When I have passed the finish I was really happy and proud. At this stage I knew that it wasn’t my first and last pacing marathon. I will do that again…

That medal is special. Like first marathon all over. Running with new friends, surrunded by runners and spending that time in one of nices town in Europe… Thanks everyone.

Some pictures from that day: