Gdańsk Południe parkrun, Poland
On a day that saw runs cancelled in France for excess heat, and England was warm too, Poland had ideal weather for running - overcast, warm, a tiny shower after we'd finished and then some sun to enjoy later.I celebrated with my fastest run since Rotterdam, last year, even getting over-excited and catching the young boy who was pacing 22 minutes. It didn't last, but I was happy just to be in the ball park.
Południe is a district of Gdańsk - the word just means South, so many cities have a "Południe". I had an easy stroll through parks and quiet streets for 4km or so from the South of the city to the park, 'Zbiornik retencyjny Świętokrzyska'. It's more like 7km from the centre of the city, but there are plenty of buses. You also have the choice of Gdansk parkrun itself, at a similar distance from the city, though it was cancelled this weekend for a triathlon.
The run is a fast and flat one, and a pretty simple course. There are no facilities, so post-run entertainment is provided by the participants, with water and some biscuits with the parkrun name on. They made me pose with one of those, but it was a terrible picture and I'll not share it. Nice biscuits, though.
The meeting point is the car park at the SE corner of the park, next to some apartment buildings as you can see above. The start is further round the park, on the West side, so everyone wanders over there. That happened organically, but it seemed to slightly surprise the organisers, and I wondered whether if they'd had a moment longer, they might have done the announcements at the initial meeting point. It didn't matter, they carried the megaphone to the start and did them there - several rounds of applause, some I couldn't make out, others clearly for milestones (such as someone running their 50th parkrun).
There were a couple of other English people there, taking a break from a stag-do, which is an impressive effort. We all ran one loop of the Southern-most, larger lake, ran round the East side of it again before heading up the path to the other lake, which is smaller, has a small hill to surmount to get up onto the path, and a fountain in the middle to greet you once you're up the hill. Back down the path, round the other side of the larger lake and back to the meeting point. Job done.
Chasing the pacer
Not many people spoke English, which isn't uncommon so far for me in Poland (and if they're learning a language, it's more likely to be Ukrainian, to talk to their new friends), but I still managed to have a quick chat about my 500 shirt with a runner - he was breathing more easily than me as we ran down the last straight, asking me first in Polish and then English but I managed to answer his questions. And I had a nice chat via a phone's translation (typing) with a young girl whose mum had asked me to pose with the Gdańsk Południe biscuit. She wanted particularly to know how long I'd been doing parkrun for to get a 500 shirt, and was kind of amazed that my first event was in 2007. I looked at her and suddenly realised that most of her life, and we communicated that with a big of sign language. She enjoyed it, I pretended to. Yikes.
Results from parkrun Gdańsk Południe event 247, 18/6/22 - 78 finishers.