Flora Warsaw Marathon

- 30th Anniversary

FEEL THE POWER OF HISTORY - September 28, 2008

Thirty years ago in Warsaw two thousand runners stood at the starting line of the first marathon.

None of them knew that they were beginning to create a history of something more than just a run, that covering 42.195 metres year by year would fire the imagination of the runners from all over Poland and from abroad.

Thirty years ago a story began to take shape, which year by year unites runners, supporters and ordinary people. Now it istime to celebrate the grand anniversary.

                                       30. Flora Warsaw Marathon. A run like never before.

                 On the 28 September you are going to feel the power of history.

This was my first marathon, my first participation in a street run at all. It was called the I Peace Marathon, at present it is called the Warsaw Marathon. I learned about it on a Friday - from an article in a sports newspaper. I remember the inner voice shouting: this is what you've been waiting for!

At that time I did not practise any sports, so when on Saturday after work I told my friends at some get together that I was going to run in the marathon the next day, most of them claimed that I wouldn't make it.

At the competition's office it turned out that I had no idea of mass runs. I was wearing green and white gym shoes, a T-shirt, some shorts, but I had had no doctor's examination or that bit of money to pay the participation fee. On the spot I learned that there had been some enrolling beforehand and that the list was already closed. Luckily some runner had a number for a person who did not come, so I ran with him.

We started from the meadows near the most famous stadium in Poland - the Tenth Anniversary Stadium. The starter was my idol - Zdzisław Krzyszkowiak, Polish champion from the Olympic Games in Rome. Up to the seventeenth kilometre I ran, then I began slowly to learn what a marathon was about. So I walked, trying from time to time to run up at least a bit.

The atmosphere was that of a rally or a picnic - at the refreshment points they were serving sugar cubes, apples, mint, tea and hot sausages. Participants were sitting down along the route having snacks and inviting others to join them.

The finishing was for me a great experience. Crossing the gateway and finishing on the very Stadium, where twenty years before Polish athletes defeated the American representation, where our football players won a match with the Soviet Union.

And I won: I completed the run with a time 5.01.53. I had no doubt that if thesame event took place the following year I would run in it again.

So, I have been returning to

the route of the Warsaw Marathon every year for the past thirty years! Now I run for the sheer pleasure of it. A lot has changed here - the equipment is different, the preparation of the runners as well. On the refreshment points - instead of mint and sausages - there are bananas and Powerade. 

Yet there is still thesame spirit of daring, the joy of running, the positive madness in the people taking part in it.

That is why in September, standing on the start line, I am going to say to myself again: 'Ziut you're gonna do it again'.