Kopřivnice, Štramberk, Pustevny
Last weekend my friend and colleague Martin offered me, whether I would like to participate on a trip. His friend Han was exploring Europe and stopped also in Ostrava for several days. They planned a short trip and had one place free in the car. Since I liked the idea of getting out to the fresh air, I agreed.
Sunday morning they picked me up at my place and we went to our first stop: the Technical Museum Tatra in Kopřivnice. I had visited it before, but since it had been a long time ago, I was very delighted to see it again. The museum has got a large exposition of cars, trucks, airplanes and some special vehicles, all produced by the Tatra factory.
When we had enough of cars, we headed to the town of Štramberk, where we climbed up to the castle and then to the top of the castle tower. Although the weather was not so good, the view was quite spectacular (see the pictures). From the castle we hiked to the opposite hill to see the cave „Šipka“. The cave was a place, where Neanderthal had lived many thousands of years ago. It is a place of many archaeological discoveries.
We all with the statue of Radegast
Next stop was the open-air museum in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. Unfortunately,
we discovered it had been closed for the whole month, so we headed to Pustevny,
the most famous and visited resort in Beskydy mountains, instead. The
temperature was below zero with bad visibility, but we had to visit the statue
of pagan god Radegast anyway. One and half kilometre there and one and half
back, it was not so bad, even in that kind of weather (because it is a stand
with hot beverages right next to it 
).
The resort of Pustevny was the last stop, after that we went back home. I enjoyed the trip very much, saw many places I have not seen for some time and generally had a good time.
I got published!
It was not so long time ago when I had to create and defend my diploma thesis, I still remember the immense struggle that I had to endure while writing it. I am definitely not the type of person that can write novels just by taking the pen or opening the text editor. My writing speed could be measured in „days per page“ or so. However, in the end everything was all right, I defended it and successfully finished the university.
Much to my surprise, I received an e-mail through the supervisor of my thesis that LAP Publishing is interested in possibly publishing it. I contacted them and send them the manuscript. After several e-mails and polishing the final version for the print, I sent it awaiting the result.
Today I checked and the book is already available to buy. It is amazing, I am very happy now. Feel free to get a copy, if you are interested in the subject.
Running my first race
It was no more than two months ago I started with running. The beginnings were hard, I felt winded after several hundred metres, but with time I got more used to it and could cope with longer distances. My colleague from work, Vojta, talked me into signing up for a quarter marathon in Ostrava. The distance 10 548 metres was a big challenge for me, mostly because I had never run so long track before.
On the race day (last Friday) I felt ready. My target was simply to finish it, I did not care about time, just about beating the distance. The track was set up on the main street in Poruba, which was closed to traffic due to this event. Almost six and half laps on the almost flat tarmac seemed scary from the starting line, but I was in a good mood.
First two laps were hard. At first I had trouble maintaining my pace, it is
quite easy to chase someone faster, but to endure and not burn out while doing
that, that is another chapter :). From the third lap I found my comfortable
pace (although the meaning of „comfort“ was very shifted here). In my last
lap I was almost alone on the track, but I felt some surplus of strength and
ran faster a little, ending with exhausting finish with heart-rate near 190
(word comfort did not apply any more ). I finished with time 1:02:40, which was far
beyond my expectations. I was very happy about that, because my guess was about
1:20:00. I got a diploma and a participant's medal and went home.
The race was really a unique experience for me, the atmosphere was just great. For sure it was not my last one.