The plan
Whilst in Portugal the weekend before, I had a look on Sky Scanner for any flights running this weekend. Ciara had already organised to fly to Ireland to see her parents (I couldn't because I'd have had to have taken a day off work which I couldn't do), so I thought I'd have a look rather than sitting at home on my own all weekend.
Lo and behold, there were very nicely priced flights for a trip that I'd had in the back of my mind that Ciara wouldn't be able to come on anyway.
£19 satuday morning flight to Vienna, £19 Sunday morning back to London from Bratislava. It would be rude not to.
So Saturday morning came around and it was another silly early rise and drive to Stansted - the Escape Lounge there was quickly becoming my new local. Ciara and I were both at the airport but with boarding passes to two different flights. She boarded her 0700 to Knock and half an hour later I was on my Lauda flight to Vienna. I'd booked the flight through Ryanair so was a little confused when I saw a racing driver inspired plane pull up to our gate, but put two and two together after remebemring Ryanair flies a a few different flags.
The run
I got off the plane in Vienna and got changed and organised my bag in the toilet, ready for the run, and headed down to the train station. I boarded the S7 train eastbound, away from the city centre, and got off a few stops down at Haslau/Donau Bahnhst. It was barely a station really, more just somewhere that the train stopped at the side of the road. I'd had a quick look on street view so knew what to expect and what I was looking for. After a deep breath for motivation and to ask the common questions to myself of "Really? Why are you here? What are you doing? How would you explain this very specific moment to anyone new?" I headed to the west end of the 'station' and found the danube river cycle path which I was going to run along all the way to Slovakia.
The Danube cycle route runs from Germany to Hungary along the river which, vitaly for me, goes straight through Vienna and Bratislava. The route is very popular amongst cyclists in the Summer but unfortunately it was to be a very lonely and isolated day without seeing any other tourists heading down the route (just a handful of very polite locals here and there). The route is marked (at least for this section) by green signs with the German name and an EU symbol. These were very very useful and each one brought a great deal of comfort that I was heading in the right direction and hadn't accidentally crossed onto private property. I did also buy an e-sim for the weekend and had downloaded an offline section of google maps so all in all navigation was not much of an issue on this run.
While it is called the DANUBE cycle path, there was a distinct lack of river on the section that I was running. I don't think I even saw the Danube until I'd done at least a half marathon. The beginning of the run was essentially just running through farmers' fields for a few miles at a time before going through a small town then back through the next farm. I did also hit a few wind farms and have to run directly underneath two massive turbines. Even though they were of course very safe and well built, the pure sense of gigantism up close made me pick up the pace as the blades swung directly overhead, just in case something were to go wrong at the wrong time.
I did eventually see the river in a nice moment of peace after cutting through a small section of woods parallel to the path I was on. Not that the rest of the run was over stimulating but the sound of nothing but the slow flow of a river will always be incredibly calming. The water was passing round an island in the middle and I took a break for a few moments to soak it in, then carried on running. The path then rejoined the river later without any trees in the way and I got a sense for the full scale of it. This setion of the Danube is not necessarily the prettiest, especially not in the Winter, but a great sight nonetheless.
After a little bit of cutting back on myself with some improvised shuttle runs to add a little extra distance, I made it to the border with a little over a marathon on the watch. It was very relieving to have it over with. My heavy bag was weighing on my back and shoulders and my hands had been struggling with a five hour fight against frost bite, even with the help of gloves and a snude wrapped round one at a time. The border was one you could cross by accident without knowing (until the road signs change from German to Slovakian). I sat outside the casino cafe on the Slovakian side for a few minutes whilst waiting for a bolt taxi to take me to my hotel in Bratislava. I didn't have any time to waste as I was only half done. I didn't have long until 3:30 Sunday morning when I would have to wake up and run another marathon in Slovakia...
