On Friday (November 9... yeah, I am running behind, but trying to get caught up here) I went for a run through town and up to the forested ridge (or probably better referred to as the deforested ridge) above the village. While passing through town, I ran by a couple of guys outside one of the Pensions. One of the guys noticed that I was wearing a knee brace and stopped me, chatting away in Slovak. I explained that I only spoke english, and in broken English he asked about me knee, explaining that he had had surgery a few months earlier, showing me his scar. He said he was recovering nicely, and was up to about six km running. Then he asked if I’d like to join him for a run on Sunday at 10:00am, along a route that he likes to do with 500m elevation gain. Sure I would!

Pawel is kind of a bad ass. He blew his knee apart skiing in the masters championships in Slovenia, had to drive all the way home before going to the hospital in Poprad. I am guessing he is in his late forties, and still keeping really active.

As our communication was rather broken, I thought we would be leaving from town, so I didn’t bring my camera or anything. I ran over to the house where I had met Pawel a few days earlier. He and his wife passed me in their car as I jogged over, he stopped and said he would be ready in five minutes... no problem... So we drove about 15km over to the next town, Jarolina, and set out from there. From our conversations, I thought we were doing a 6km run... well we were, but that was only one way, and all uphill! Pawel explained that his personal record, one way, was 36 minutes, pre-surgery.

And his P.R. since was 45 minutes. We weren’t going very fast, and I often found myself holding back, but we still managed to cover the uphill in 40 minutes, and new post surgery P.R. for Pawel.

The trail led to a beautiful panorama in a valley in the middle of the High Tatras. We followed the creek up and up and up until we came to clearing behind the pass I had dome a few days earlier. It was gorgeous. We took it easy on the way back down, trotting, then stopping, then going again. When we finished Pawel asked me if I wanted to go running again on Wednesday. I was very, very tempted to stick around another three days, but it was about time I set off. A great way to finish up my time in Zdiar.