Marathon Mazury

Well, what should you do in the middle of June in Poland? How about the Mazury Marathon? After doing my first marathon a month and a half ago I was keen for more action, and what better than a trail marathon I thought.... well it was easily the hardest thing I have ever done. I fell over two and a half times, I ate a lot of bananas and vegan cola gummi snakes, and drank until I could drink no more. It took 3hours and 46 minutes to cover the 42.2 kms and it was painful. As I write this now I can feel the throbbing from my toes whose nails won't be there for much longer. But the feeling of finishing was the greatest thing in the world.

Before the race, people had too much time and energy on their hands.

My Warsaw International Triathlon Club team members, all finished and all did me proud

This is Ryszard, he started running in 1997 and did his first marathon, he has now run 200 of them! I take my hat off to him.

An amazing man, people who say "I can't run a marathon" really just don't want to at the end of the day. Which is fine.

Many proud athletes finished.

Head down to the finish is sometimes the best option

Or maybe getting some family support is a good thing too!

Some will do a dance in the last few miles

Just getting to the end is worth a thumbs up.

Local fire truck, the straż were amazing and clapped every finisher!

Support is really important to a runner, if you ever go past a marathon, even just on a day out in town, stop off and give a cheer to a few people, it really means the world to a runner. Even run alongside them and support them. It is an amazing feeling.

Many locals will watch you run past and support you too.

After all of that you get a medal, it isn't gold and it really doesn't matter.

You also get to reward yourself eating guilt free, as you have burned somewhere between 3000-5000calories. Depending on your speed and size. From the size of this I burned a lot!

Mazury is known as the lake district of Poland. It is the capital's playground sitting between 2 and 3 hours from Warsaw. It is a very popular place for people to have summer houses and for school trips and the like. It is beautiful, sparsely populated and you are never far from a lake. In Polish it is called the Kraina Tysiąca Jezior and in German as Land der Tausend Seen, meaning "land of a thousand lakes", this kind of gives it away a little.

As Mazury is the lake district you must visit a lake or two.

After the run, rest your feet.

It is so quiet and still, barely a sound other than wildlife.

Then it is time to cruise home.

Another trip to the Far East.

So again we wanted to go to sunny sunny, Sokolka and this time, it would be by train rather than with Marty's Dad, as we had the chance to leave a little earlier as my classes were cancelled and Marty had a day off.We've got a ticket to ride, and a train with windows you can hang out of helps!
And luckily no poles to hit us when doing said leaning.
On arrival, as per every return visit to the family home, Marty's Mum dishes up delights. Here we have one of the traditional soups. Beetroot soup, Barszcz, or to be easier pronounced for silly Australians, it is Borscht.
Of course, the soup was only the first course then we had one of my favourites: fried fish with mashed potatoes and home made salted cucumbers. These are not the ogorek most people associate with Poland, as these are more a short term dish typical of late summer. Where the cucumbers are soaked in briney water but are to be eaten within 48 hours so that they are still crunchy.

On the Saturday, it was a nice day and we decided to go to the lakes district of Poland which is called Masuria. It is filled with around 2000 lakes, and was once a very popular German "Spa Resort" in the early 1900's. It is a really pretty location, but like most every pretty part of the world these days, is over run with city slickers escaping the rat race.
We hired a paddleboats for an hour and set off down an inlet. Some like Marty were very elegant. Others just threw tantrums.
The reflections on the still inlet water were lovely and very pretty.
Where the green meets the water, it is idyllic and just another world away from the hustle and bustle which you find 2.5 hours south west of here. It is seeing these things you realise why so many people holiday here rather than overseas. Still I am not so sure why so many want jet skis and speed boats......

We drifted into the main lake town of Augustow where we grabbed some fresh, but now fried trout. Something I hadn't had before. It wasn't too bad, but I have had better trout in Poland.