The morning after the night before
On the Saturday, I flew to Vienna and ran a marathon to the border with Slovakia. I then got a taxi to Marrol's Boutique Hotel and had a wash. I couldn't be bothered for a sitdown meal so went to the nearest Lidl and picked up some bread, fruit and chocolate, as well as three large packets of sushi as the best carb loading option for dinner. I then went back to the hotel, tried to stretch a bit and then got to sleep as early as I could.
At 0330 on Sunday, my alarm went and it was time to go again. After editing the Youtube video I realised how rough I sounded that morning, which matched how I felt inside. Being terribly exhausted is okay after a marathon, but not before. But there was no option to go back to bed. I had to check out by 11, which meant breakfast and packing the room up by 10, which meaant back in to the room to wash by 9, which meant (with five hours of leeway) starting the marathon at 4. I missed the start time by a almost 30 minutes because I decided to take a little longer to get ready for the day, physically and mentally.
Eventually, I got myself out of the room, walked down the stairs, past what I'm sure was a very confused employee at the reception desk and out into the -3 degrees celcius pitch black capital city of Slovakia.
The run
I brought my bag with some gels and water with me initially as I didn't have a route properly planned and wasn't sure if I'd go back into the hotel at any point or not. I knew that there was a bit of a path along the North bank of the Danube so started with that. I got a little over a mile from the hotel, largely under the guidance of street lights, before the road got darker and I decided to turn around. Another mile and a bit back to and past the section of the road closest to the hotel before getting to a junction and not wanting to get lost or run down an unfamiliar road yet. After repeating this twice more, I was already really suffering from the cold and it had started to snow. I made the executive decision to head back to the hotel, up the stairs and drop my bag in the room to make the running easier. Just before getting to the hotel, two men in dark coats crossed the road to walkk directly towards me. I thought I was in trouble, not sure if they were going to try and mug me or something like that. As we came face to face they very politely and sheepishly asked me to stop and tried to ask me for directions. After a few seconds of them speaking English, I realised that both parties thought the other were locals when in fact we were all Londoners abroad. I Broke my silence with 'Ah English people'. They were utterly perplexed as to the fact that a non-local would be running in this weather at this time and we shared a few laughs while I explained what I was doing. I then gave them the best directions I could towards their Ibis Centrum hotel that I had not yet seen in my 11 hours in the city (a point in a direction I had little confidence in but did in fact turn out to be right).
I had a short pit stop, had some water and food then went back out. Similarly to what I did in Amsterdam (another second half of a two marathons in under 24 hurs weekend), I thought I'd break it up into 4 roughly 10k segments, divided by a stops back in the room. The liveliness of the city however, was nothing like Amsterdam at 5am at all. There was barely a soul to see in Bratislava, unlike the thousands of party-goers and roamed the dutch streets.
The second segment was much like the first, starting with an up and down along the river, possibly two or three, it's so hard to remeber the specific moments of such a monotonous marathon. The snow was picking up a little and beginning to set. I then headed into the centre of town to mix things up and actually explre a little bit. Saying that, I didn't know anything at all about Bratislava really, or where the 'centre' was. All I knew from my brief plook around Google maps was that if I run perpendicular to the river rather than parallel I should find some sort of centre. Due to the complete and utter lack of footfall as a guide, my self-elected centre of town was a nice pllace to stop for a second and walk. The foggy sky, snow on the ground, absence of life and grand architecture made for an ominous but equally picturesque scene.
Half marathon done, back to the hotel for a quick pitstop. The breaks worked well for me but I'm sure only further confused reception. Out for the third segment which I don't think I can remember much about. It was something along the lines of the second - up and down the river a bit then a little more exploring but this time up towards the castle. I didn't fancy the full hill though so called it quits half way up and took a path back down to the river.
During my final pitstop, I put my rain jacket on as an extra layer as I was anticiating a fair bit of walking in the final segment and a drop in heart rate and body temperature. The Sun had finally risen by this point and I decided to cross the main bridge over to the South side of the river. There waiting for me was a beautiful park, covered in a sheet of white. I weaved around all the little criss-crossing paths and had the pleasure of taking the first steps on a few of them to break the fresh snow. I got a few miles in here with less walking than anticipated before crossing back over the bridge. With only a mile or two to go, I decided to end it how it started with an up and down of the river path. That I did and the full marathon was complete as I stopped by the road that led to my hotel, almost bang on my 9am targtet.
In a world of modern luxuries, nothing makes you appreciate the brilliance of the 'simple' things (a bath full of hot water) like a few hours in the freezing cold. I washed and let my muscles soak before getting dressed and heading down for breakfast. My stomach doesn't usually want loads of food after a marathon but I managed to get a decent amount down. I then packed my sweaty clothes and other belongings into my rucksack and checked out. I had about two hours to kill before I'd need to head to the airport. Dreading a return to the cold, I contemplated just sitting in the lobby but decided that would be a waste of time. The only tourist attraction that I kknew about was the castle so I headed bac towards it and made it the whole way up the hill this time. It had a similar massiveness about it to the wind turbines in Austria the day before, with very noticeably large gaps between windows. It's a beautiful castle and definitely worth checking out if you're in Bratislava.
After a little bit of touristing, I walked North from the castle (in a very indirect route after geting slightly lost figuring out how to actually get don the hill inn the direction I wanted to go with all the zig-zagging paths) to the bus stop and made it perfectly on time for the bus just leaving for the airport. This minor win felt massive as it meant less standing around in the cold. I hung out in the Mastercad Lounge at Bratislava for an hour or so before boarding yet another Ryanair flight to Stansted. And again, I would be back at Stansted next weekend for the three-peat for a race in Germany.
I brought my bag with some gels and water with me initially as I didn't have a route properly planned and wasn't sure if I'd go back into the hotel at any point or not. I knew that there was a bit of a path along the North bank of the Danube so started with that. I got a little over a mile from the hotel, largely under the guidance of street lights, before the road got darker and I decided to turn around. Another mile and a bit back to and past the section of the road closest to the hotel before getting to a junction and not wanting to get lost or run down an unfamiliar road yet. After repeating this twice more, I was already really suffering from the cold and it had started to snow. I made the executive decision to head back to the hotel, up the stairs and drop my bag in the room to make the running easier. Just before getting to the hotel, two men in dark coats crossed the road to walkk directly towards me. I thought I was in trouble, not sure if they were going to try and mug me or something like that. As we came face to face they very politely and sheepishly asked me to stop and tried to ask me for directions. After a few seconds of them speaking English, I realised that both parties thought the other were locals when in fact we were all Londoners abroad. I Broke my silence with 'Ah English people'. They were utterly perplexed as to the fact that a non-local would be running in this weather at this time and we shared a few laughs while I explained what I was doing. I then gave them the best directions I could towards their Ibis Centrum hotel that I had not yet seen in my 11 hours in the city (a point in a direction I had little confidence in but did in fact turn out to be right).
I had a short pit stop, had some water and food then went back out. Similarly to what I did in Amsterdam (another second half of a two marathons in under 24 hurs weekend), I thought I'd break it up into 4 roughly 10k segments, divided by a stops back in the room. The liveliness of the city however, was nothing like Amsterdam at 5am at all. There was barely a soul to see in Bratislava, unlike the thousands of party-goers and roamed the dutch streets.
The second segment was much like the first, starting with an up and down along the river, possibly two or three, it's so hard to remeber the specific moments of such a monotonous marathon. The snow was picking up a little and beginning to set. I then headed into the centre of town to mix things up and actually explre a little bit. Saying that, I didn't know anything at all about Bratislava really, or where the 'centre' was. All I knew from my brief plook around Google maps was that if I run perpendicular to the river rather than parallel I should find some sort of centre. Due to the complete and utter lack of footfall as a guide, my self-elected centre of town was a nice pllace to stop for a second and walk. The foggy sky, snow on the ground, absence of life and grand architecture made for an ominous but equally picturesque scene.
Half marathon done, back to the hotel for a quick pitstop. The breaks worked well for me but I'm sure only further confused reception. Out for the third segment which I don't think I can remember much about. It was something along the lines of the second - up and down the river a bit then a little more exploring but this time up towards the castle. I didn't fancy the full hill though so called it quits half way up and took a path back down to the river.
During my final pitstop, I put my rain jacket on as an extra layer as I was anticiating a fair bit of walking in the final segment and a drop in heart rate and body temperature. The Sun had finally risen by this point and I decided to cross the main bridge over to the South side of the river. There waiting for me was a beautiful park, covered in a sheet of white. I weaved around all the little criss-crossing paths and had the pleasure of taking the first steps on a few of them to break the fresh snow. I got a few miles in here with less walking than anticipated before crossing back over the bridge. With only a mile or two to go, I decided to end it how it started with an up and down of the river path. That I did and the full marathon was complete as I stopped by the road that led to my hotel, almost bang on my 9am targtet.
In a world of modern luxuries, nothing makes you appreciate the brilliance of the 'simple' things (a bath full of hot water) like a few hours in the freezing cold. I washed and let my muscles soak before getting dressed and heading down for breakfast. My stomach doesn't usually want loads of food after a marathon but I managed to get a decent amount down. I then packed my sweaty clothes and other belongings into my rucksack and checked out. I had about two hours to kill before I'd need to head to the airport. Dreading a return to the cold, I contemplated just sitting in the lobby but decided that would be a waste of time. The only tourist attraction that I kknew about was the castle so I headed bac towards it and made it the whole way up the hill this time. It had a similar massiveness about it to the wind turbines in Austria the day before, with very noticeably large gaps between windows. It's a beautiful castle and definitely worth checking out if you're in Bratislava.
After a little bit of touristing, I walked North from the castle (in a very indirect route after geting slightly lost figuring out how to actually get don the hill inn the direction I wanted to go with all the zig-zagging paths) to the bus stop and made it perfectly on time for the bus just leaving for the airport. This minor win felt massive as it meant less standing around in the cold. I hung out in the Mastercad Lounge at Bratislava for an hour or so before boarding yet another Ryanair flight to Stansted. And again, I would be back at Stansted next weekend for the three-peat for a race in Germany.