Grīviņš runs 327 kilometers from Kornets to Riga

IN SHORT:

• Pēteris Grīviņš overcomes 19 stages of Mežtakas.
• In the inter-season, various challenges are gaining popularity again.
• The global pandemic will not leave long-lived people elsewhere in the world without consequences.

Pēteris Grīviņš overcomes 19 stages of Mežtakas

The hiking routes “Jūrtaka” and “Mežtaka” are gaining popularity in Latvia, one of which stretches along the Baltic Sea coast from Nida in Lithuania to Narva in Estonia, while the other leads on trails from the Polish border to Tallinn. Outside the Baltic States, the Jūrtakas route is marked on the maps to the west of the continent in Portugal, and the Mežtaka route through Germany to the Netherlands.

At the end of the trail running competition season, Pēteris Grīviņš chose to test himself on the 19 hiking stages of “Mežtakas” from Kornets to Riga, running 330 kilometers in 40 hours. Route planners have chosen to stay relatively close to the longest river in Latvia, the Gauja, taking nature lovers through the Ape, Gaujiena, Strenči, Valmiera, Cēsis, Līgatne, Sigulda, Rāmkalni, Vangaži and Baltezers. Only five percent is asphalt, the rest are forest trails (60 percent) and gravel roads (35 percent).

At one time, the father of the world orienteering champion Edgars Bertuks kept his promise and went from Alūksne to Riga. Walking along the highway, the road is a third shorter than the “Mežtakas” section.

In the summer, Pēteris Grīviņš was helped to reach the 107-kilometer Riga-Valmiera record (7:59:02) by the support team and the presence of coach Andris Ronimoiss at the competition checkpoints. The ultramarathonist also has considerable experience in 24-hour rogaining and adventure competitions. Once again, Stirnubuka’s team “Pulsometrs.lv” and training members from “Superheroes”, as well as friends from his own team “Surikati” were from the first steps.

Matīss Haritonovs, followed by Alvis Danovskis, accompanied the runner on the first morning of the first day at 7.00 at the Estonian border. At the night, the leading domestic runners Anete Švilpe and Andris Ronimoiss were nearby. All the other day, the young and promising Guido Kalnins ran to the finish, covering a total of 116 kilometers. On the evening of the second day, the runner Jānis Kūms ran a marathon from Rāmkalni to Rīga on the second day. Linda Boldāne, a runner on a random trail, was next to both days, covering a total of 148 kilometers. His wife Ieva Upmace-Grīviņa ran several tens of kilometers in the dark parts of the evening.

Pēteris Grīviņš himself, calling himself a baton, which members pass from hand to hand to the next group of runners, covered 327.45 kilometers in 43 hours and 15 minutes at an average pace of 7:55 min / km, collecting 2272 altitude meters and consuming 23 833 calories. The energy loss was constantly monitored by the always-around team and reminded of quick snacks. In the most populated areas, the runner was greeted by more serious meals and moments of rest, warming up in the car and even short 15-minute sleep breaks to withstand the body’s overload for less than two days. Four to five times the rest break was less than an hour long, twice as short the running breaks were seven times.

For the ultramarathonist who came from Rauna, after more than 300 kilometers, a special moment was the Halloween night picture in Riga on Raunas Street with a group of runners, which had become much larger at the finish line and reached double digits. Roland’s statue in the Town Hall Square met Pēteris Grīviņš quarter after two at night.

“I had two reasons why I did this – the egoist wanted to check his limits, while the altruist wanted to show his fellow men that nothing has been lost, we have the opportunity to move freely and invent our own challenges,” Pēteris Grīviņš told LSM after the challenge.

Asked about the race itself, the ultramarathonist marks both the Christian moment and the team’s merits in the implementation of the project:

“Of course there were ups and downs. The lowest point was in Strenči, where I ran into powerlessness and spent almost an hour in the car, trying to sleep, which failed, and thinking about life, for example, why I need it at all.

And this was also one of the moments when I appreciated my support team the most – if I had moments when I wanted to end my adventure, the support team banished such thoughts. In addition, at the stops I felt like an F-1 pilot stopping for a tire change – I was changed, I changed my socks, I was fed. It seems that I don’t use my energy at stops at all – I rather absorb it from others.

It is also the most important thing I have gained from all this – a sense of community. I still think that without the trail runner community, I probably wouldn’t have reached the finish line. “

It is possible that a video will be made about the race, because the team members have filmed the brightest moments with a sports camera. In the meantime, you can listen to a 20-minute conversation with Pēteris Grīviņš after arriving in Riga and running 315 kilometers.

In the inter-season, various challenges are gaining popularity again

In the spring, during the review of the LSM popular sports pandemic, various challenges were announced, in which you can test your strength at a time when competitions are not allowed. One of such tests is the 80-kilometer Sigulda-Riga, which was run by seniors Iveta Šķiņķe and Ilva Kārkliņa in 10 hours and 21 minutes at the weekend. Thus, this challenge has been taken by more than 20 runners and runners.

Meanwhile, the already mentioned Linda Boldāne managed to cover the vertical kilometer on the outskirts of Cēsis in Ozolkalns, climbing 14 times on a downhill ski track in less than 78 minutes (1:17:54), losing 25 seconds to Anete Švilpė in a distance fight. The total number of challengers is approaching 40.

Signis Vāvere from Sigulda, the founder of the VSK Noskrien portal, spent the morning of November 1 in Mežaparks, running a marathon distance of 42,195 kilometers in less than three hours and 40 minutes (3:39:24), not only reaching a new personal record, but also improving his the best result of the Riga Marathon so far.

Last week, Māra Braslava ran 57 kilometers from Saulkrasti to Riga in less than seven hours. Māris Ābele, one of the fastest long-distance runners, tested himself for the first time in the conditional ultra distance, winning a marathon in the Babīte area in three hours and then continuing up to 50 kilometers, completing the training race in three hours and 33 minutes at an average speed of 4: 16 / km.

The global pandemic will not leave runners anywhere else in the world without consequences

50-kilometer specialist Raivis Zaķis will run a twice shorter distance in local competitions in Ireland this week.

On October 1, the former firefighter Aidas Ardzijauskas started a conditionally virtual project in the vicinity of Kaunas, running an average of 80 kilometers every day, starting the activity at seven in the morning and devoting 10-11 hours to it. Thus, 2494 kilometers were covered in 311 hours in October, everything continues in November, and in the first three days of the month, 31 hours were given for running, during which 238 kilometers were covered. True, the average pace during the month decreased to 8 min / km.

It is planned for a Lithuanian to travel virtually around the world in 400 days or about 13 months, covering 30,000 kilometers. The virtual route leads through Europe to Ireland, then both America, Australia, Russia and return to Lithuania. It is planned to run live in about 20 Lithuanian cities, but in the first month it was most often run in Vilnius.

The runner is known for other projects in which Latvia has also been crossed. In 2012, Aidas Ardzijauskas circled Lithuania for 1,089 kilometers in 24 days. The following year, 3266 kilometers were run around the Baltic Sea in 44 days. Another year, 5013 kilometers in 62 days ran the popular route Los Angeles-New York. For a couple of years to rest, the super long distance runner spent 102 days in the 2017-2018 8000 kilometer project Dakar-Vilnius. Last year, 5250 kilometers were traveled from Norway to Greece in 74 days. In 2015 and 2016, they won victories in the 10- and 6-day races of New York, covering 1,073 and 832 kilometers. In the centenary of the country, an award was received from President Dalia Gribuskaite for bringing Lithuania’s name to the world. Currently, the ultramarathonist is limited in Lithuania, but this does not diminish his determination to travel around the world conditionally during the year. The 48-year-old runner has counted a total of 140,000 kilometers since 1980.

Meanwhile, Russian Ruslan Shakin once again threw himself into a real-world project, and on November 2, he started a 1,000-mile race across Great Britain. Just on September 25, the runner completed the 144-day test, crossing the United States from Los Angeles to New York on the historic Route 66. Prior to that, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina and South Africa were flown. The total goal of the project is to run 40,075 kilometers on five continents, thus circling the globe.

Meanwhile, the world’s most famous trail runner, the Catalan Kílian Jornet Burgada, has started to test himself in the flat challenges from the mountain ultradistances during the pandemic. After the 10-kilometer highway race (0:29:59), the turn has arrived at the stadium, where in the near future it is planned to cover 756 laps a day to break the world record – 303.506 kilometers. A runner living in Norway completed two marathon trials in a six-hour August test run.