It was my mother’s birthday on Saturday. I wish her love, wisdom, good friends, all of her dreams to come true and everything best!

I’m happily posting that, thanks to God, I’ve completed the first half marathon run in my life. It was an exciting experience for me, as well, as a good test of my running skills and, even more, the power of the will.

This was not an official half marathon run, but rather one, which I was completing by myself, with the huge help of God. The run was done on Tuesday evening in the park, which is located close to my home, and consisted of 12 laps around the park, each of the laps being roughly 1,850m, according to my friend’s measurements. So the actual distance I’ve ran is roughly 1,100m meters more than the official half marathon distance. My time for the run was 1:55:41, which is by no means a professional time, but was quite challenging for me. My planned time for the distance was 2 hours, so I can say, that I’ve overdone my plans. :) My speed near the finish decresed by approximately 1mph, in compare with the starting speed, what shows that I haven’t calculated my strengthness really well, and is another proof of my being not a professional runner.

Another important thing to note, is that I’ve done two runs, summing up in roughly 7km in the morning, and 3 runs summing up in roughly 16km the day before, which took some of strengthness, but from the other side, was a good training practice.

It was raining during the most of the run and, I guess, this had more more positive than negative effect on me: the air became more fresh and by having some rain water on my body (not much, though, most of the distance is well-covered by tress) I was better protected from overheating.

After the run was done I felt legs soreness and hardly kept myself walking on them. When I came home, I felt my leg hurting near the basin, but the ache was over by the next day. Also, besides my mother’s massage an hour or two after the run, I’ve been taking massage sessions for the past two days, which helps me to accelerate the recovering process. I’ve still felt legs soreness during today’s and yesterday’s morning jogging but it’s keeping descreasing day-by-day.

This run was an impotant event for me, as I’ve spent around two and a half months prepairing to it, at first once a day, and then, the week before the event, switched to the twice-a-day training mode. I hope it is only a start for my running achievements, and that I will complete the full marathon in the future! :)

I want to thank everyone, who contributed to my result, especially: my parents and grandparents for bringing me up, my friends and relatives for giving me support, wikipedians who’ve written the running-related articles, which helped me with useful information and coming up with a decision to finish a half marathon, and world running legends who were my inspiration before, during and after the run! And, most of all, I want to thank the Lord, thanks to whose unmeasurable support I am, who I am now.

Oh, and how enjoyable it is to drink home-made lemonade after such a run!

Together with three friends I’ve spent three days in Hrebeniv, a small village in the Carpathians, and came back on Friday afternoon. We spent the time climbing on the mountains, bathing in the river and gathering some raspberries and bilberries. It was an exciting experience for all of us. There you get much more closer to the nature than here, in the city, because of things, like: breathing fresh air, drinking spring water and watching a lot of mountains around you. All that and just relaxation makes the time being spent greatly there. I’d like to go there again sometime, probably this summer.

We’ve made a bunch of photos over there, but accidentally formatted the camera’s built-in memory card, where they were stored, so we had to make new ones. I’m not sure when I will be able to get around to put the photos on the web, but will try to do that as soon as I can.

Although it is over two weeks since the event, I decided to post about it on this weblog. The uni I’ve joined is National University “Lviv Polytechnic”, a short Wikipedia article about it is located here. My major for the years of studying there will be computer science. Several of my friends and people I’m aquainted with are already studying in the computer science institute (the word “institute” in this case stands for the same thing, as “faculty” in some other unis) and saying good words about it. I hope it will be a pleasant experience for me, as it is for my friends.

Also, I’ve already finished the practice, which most of other people joining the uni have to undergo, as well. Along with several other guys, I was prepairing the cabinet walls for the network cables. Besides that we’ve also had to make a bit smaller deepenings for the electrical cables in the corridor, and accidentally cut off the signalisation and phone cables… The cathedra (the one I’ve choosed my specialisation from) director was little angry on us for this, but talked about this with humor.

The school is over. It was a place where I’ve met the most of my friends, spent around six hours each day and argued with the teachers. What I feel is partially grief, but also partially happiness.

The last official day at school was the 21st of June, which was the last exam day and The Leaver’s day at once. The party was held at the culinary specialised school. As usually, it started with the ceremony of harding over the certificates of high school education (I will try to find an opportunity to scan it and put online); then we we went to the dining room, after what the party itself started. Most of my former classmates were present there with some of their parents, or both of them. I was there with my mother. The party lasted till around 5 o’clock, when we went to meet the sunrise, which was a really great experience of sightseeing. Despite the music played there was mostly of pop style, most of which I don’t like, I liked the party and it will be a good memory of my class for me.

I hope, that all of my, now former, classmates will spend their future with love in their hearts, find a job that will give them a pleasure and having a good health. Good luck for all of them!

Today is my father’s birthday, all the best wishes for him on this day! I wish him good health, wisdom and all of his dreams to come true!