Blog Ani i Radka
So, we’re travelling again. Destination: Catalonia. Unfortunately, by 'we’ I mean only myself and Wojtek. Ania and Kamila had to stay at home due to a little girl’s chicken pox. Well, that’s very unfortunate but we are going to have a gentlemen’s time – father and son alone 🙂
We’ll be staying in Platja d’Aro, north of Barcelona. Stay tuned for our adventures, we sure will have plenty 🙂
After so much fun that I had in last year MTB marathon in my city I decided to do a few of them this year. First one took place in the same location – at Puszcza Wkrzańska.
This year we had better weather, no rain but the same amount of mud 😉 Unfortunately due to our running training schedules I was unable to train as much as last year what was easy to see at the end of track. Luckily this year I have many fans waiting for me and cheering me up.
Now I fill like doing some swimming and road biking because my next challenge is Triathlon. Stay tuned.
My second attempt in Włóczykij Trip Extreme (have a look HERE if you don’t remember my first one) took place this year. It’s a 50k orienteering march (or run) conducted at night close to Szczecin.
During this attempt we had lovely spring weather and were full of optimism. We walked through Puszcza Bukowa, a beautiful forest full of hills. With height difference between hills and valleys up to 80m we did a bit of hiking but we also were able to see beautiful views, at least till sunset.
After 12 hours of walk we gathered all requested points and reached the finish line. This year result was better then previous and gave us spot in the first half of the ranking. We’ll see the next year 🙂
After a long break from any sport activity (caused by the birth of our daughter) I got back to biking. A good occasion for that was the first Szczecin MTB marathon that took place in the beginning of October. Before that I had done some preparation and got familiar with the trail of race. And it was a good idea. I found out that very close to my place there was lots of hills with quite steep ascents and rough terrain that provide you both excitement and exhaustion.
On the day of the race it became obvious that conditions would be even harder than I imagined because it was raining during the whole day as well as a few days before. The track was muddy, slippery, difficult and full of fun ;-). We checked in at the starting point together with my best friend Michał and managed to get to the end in one piece.
After 1:22:55 I got to the finish line completely covered in mud but with smile on my face. The race was amazing and thanks to a few training sessions I had done before I was able to come as 42 on 163 competitors.
Ps – the authors of the photos are listed, the ones that have no author specified – the credit goes to Magda (Michał’s wife).
So the time has come for me to sail for the first time without an instructor. I rented the same boat that I had used for training and with a couple of friends I went to explore Dąbie lake again. We had the perfect weather. Unfortunately it was the perfect weather for swimming not for sailing. So for the most of our tip we needed to use engine. But nevertheless it was lots of fun on water and I did not sink 😉
A new chapter in our adventure book has started – sailing. This year for my birthday instead of a physical gift I got a new skill (course of sailing). After 4 weekends on boat and one exam later I became a sailor ;-). Now I can say that this was one of the best gifts ever.
After getting back to Poland we miss hiking a lot. But living close to see, ravers and lakes gives other opportunities for adventures. Some say that the best way to discover our city is from water. This is especially true during „Days of the Sea”, a yearly celebration when lots of polish sailing ships come to Szczecin to celebrate. Also stay tuned in the next year when Szczecin will host the Tall Ship Races and when the biggest sailing ships from around the world will come to our city.
We went to the closest skiing resort possible – in the Czech city of Harrachov that is „just” 400 km from Szczecin.
I went to Lyon for the first time since Ania’s stay in Geneva in 2010. I remembered that I hadn’t liked it too much in 2010 but this time I was positively surprised.
Small streets of old town looked lovely in the rain. Though or because of 1st May holiday, streets were full of life with plenty of tourists and shops and restaurants open.
After slow walk through old town, we climbed the hill to visit Lyon’s Notre Dame basilic.
After basilic we took some pictures of Lyon from above and went back to the car. This was a short but really nice visit.
He convinced me to go down some black slopes and in the end I had a lot of fan what you can see in the attached pictures and the video 😉
After this crazy tricks I deserved some yummy food.
This day was lots of fun even with mediocre weather and me feeling a bit sick. But what I am really waiting for is skiing together with Ania. Another 3 weeks and we will be able to do that.
This time in CERN photo club we had a great opportunity to shoot some studio photos with a beautiful model Sushma Reddy. Enjoy!
