Tag: Szczecin

III Bieg Krzyśka Kuczyńskiego

OK folks, time for new challenges! Running won’t substitute hiking but it is fun as well. My very first run, a mere ~5 km (it was 4.2 to be precise) but what a thrill! I was feeling like was I running a marathon not a small charity run. Anyway, this is worth mentioning – Krzysiek Kuczyński was our local high school student who died of leukemia some months before his final exams. A very sad story, especially when you take into consideration that he was to have a bone marrow transplant (he found a donor) but passed shortly before. Another thing worth mentioning – if you haven’t signed up as a donor yet – please do! It’s super easy, you can do it via post and it might save a life. I did it as soon as I turned 18.
Getting back to the run…. I had no idea what pace I should run and I treated it as fun – no more. I ended up running 5.18min/km which is good for me (there were two ascents on route that slowed me down). I finished 62 out of 155 contestants (it’s general competition – men and women together). I am happy with this result. I will sure do some more in the future.

Winter at last! (Gubałówka)

I love winter, I really do. I think I like it better than all the other seasons. But I mean real winter, with snow, snowmen, sledging, warm coats with fur over the hood, wearing hiking shoes all the time, drinking tea with lemon, ginger and honey… I could go on like that for long but I guess there’s no need. Anyway, Szczecin is a fussy place when it comes to winter. Some years you’ll see one, others not particularly. Some years it will last from Christmas till April (2010 – that’s you I’m talking about!) and others it will take like a few days somewhere in January. It may give us -20 dg Celsius or no frost whatsoever. So it’s always a guess what’s it gonna be like this year and how long it will last. That’s why when winter comes to us it’s a must to take advantage of it!

We went with Dorota and Bartek (my sibling-in-law) to Gubałówka. Not many people know you can actually ski in Szczecin and Gubałówka is the place for that. We never tried that (maybe this winter will be our first time?) but it is kind of a big deal to be able to go skiing in the plains that our city is situated in. There are 2 skiing routes, both around 250-300m long. And the surrounding is good for other winter activities, like sledging, cross-country skiing (off piste) or walking. We chose the last option for the day 🙂

There is not much to write about this walk. The paths are great and as you will see in the photos, I took a pram out there and managed not to knock it down from the hill. I mean, maybe it wasn’t like the place was adapted to wheels but we made it and most of the time it was just fine. The views were great, lots of virgin snow, not many people, super fun for Wojtek. I’m pretty sure we’ll do more of these walks.

Getting into the mood of Christmas

I love Christmas markets so much I actually should have a separate tag for this kind of posts. There is no single winter without me visiting at least one of such venues (2013 was an exception because my son was born in November). Have a look yourself:
– 2015
– 2014
– 2012 and 2012

This year we went to see our local Christmas Markets in Szczecin and maybe we will go again for a one day Berlin trip. We’ll see if we manage to squeeze this one in. Anyway, the one in Szczecin is quite cool although there were really a lot of people this year. It seems like every year there are more and more. Nevertheless, Wojtek enjoyed the carousel ride, we bought a nice piece of bio cheese with garlic (felt like in France for a moment) and did a couple of sparkling photos. Oh yeah, how could I forget… The reindeers are always fun!

1st Szczecin MTB Marathon

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).

Sailing: Dąbie Lake

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 😉

Ahoy, sailing adventures!

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.