Continuing my theme of running a bit while on holiday (but mostly eating) I was in Kraków for the weekend and packed my running kit in case I could find an hour or so between vodka drinking and vodka hangovers for a little run.

Again, the google machine didn’t have much on suggestions for routes, but there is a river and a lovely park surrounding the old town and with some creative google street viewing I figured I could do a 5ish km jog one morning.

Poland: All kielbasa all the time

Then, out of google magic I found out there was not only a parkrun in Kraków , but it was 1km from our airbnb! I packed my barcode and figured if the vodka gods were good to me, I’d try to make it to the Saturday 9am start.

I don’t parkrun enough, this is only my 7th (+4 volunteering) even though there are two within one mile of my house. But, when I do get out of bed on a Saturday I love the parkrun community (and the running isn’t usually so bad either).

6 shots of vodka, 5km to run, 4 hours of sleeeeeeeeeep

Saturday morning saw the sun shining and a minimal vodka still in my system so I grabbed my kit, apartment keys, some zloty, my phone and my barcode and headed out the door for the quick jog to the start. Nearing the park I saw the familiar neon look of Decathlon-clad European runners (you know what I mean if you’ve ran any race in Europe before) and a couple high vis parkrun volunteer vests.

It was a pretty cold morning so I brought a sweater and a bin bag to put it in to hopefully stash behind a tree since I wasn’t too sure about the bag situation. A few people were leaving their kit on a bench, so I added mine and watched as a woman came by with some Ikea blue bags and loaded it all up. I was pretty sure she was taking it to some safe keeping place for the end but the fun of running in a new country is… WHO KNOWS?

There was a short introduction in Polish and then we were off. The park was a 2 mile triangle with big wide paths so the hundred or so of us had lots of room. About a mile in there was a photographer (!!) and then we passed the finish chute so at least I knew where to run back to.

The mist off the park and the cathedral in the distance were beautiful and I smiled at everyone I passed. It was just so nice! The photographer was there again at the finish and lots of other runners gathered around the chute. I grabbed my token and while catching my breath joined the queue for some hot tea provided by one of the local running clubs.

Barcode and token scanned and I cheered in a few more runners before jogging the 2km back to the apartment with an all important stop to pick up some obwarzanek krakowski (don’t call them a bagel!) for breakfast. By the time I got back to the apartment the other girls were just getting up and it was perfect time for breakfast.

Thanks parkrun Kraków for a great run, I loved getting my results all in Polish!

Turns out the vodka gods were not so kind on Sunday morning so I didn’t get out for that river route run, but I’m pretty sure dancing until 4am was enough cardio.