Running in Hel
You might be wondering: “clearly the title has to be misspelled”.
Not at all. Before leaving month ago for the summer holidays to amazing Hel Peninsula in northern Poland I spent some time unsuccessfully trying to find some information about routes and paths for runners in this part of the world. I have to admit I haven’t invested much effort in this as it’s so easy to get used to instantaneous access to high quality data. I thought I will try helping to fill this gap in the web landscape. Month ago, at that time I was roughly in the middle of my 16 + 2 weeks training program for the Berlin Marathon and I needed a route of 23 km for the longest run the week I was in Jastarnia in Hel. The Hel Peninsula is the longest polish peninsula and is about 35 km long from Wladyslawowo at the base of the penisula to the Hel City at the tip of it. Clearly plenty of space for a pleasant run.
Biking route
I was nicely surprised to find a well maintained biking path which stretches along the entire peninsula. Between Wladyslawowo and Jastarnia where the the land is as narrow as couple of hundred meters the path wanders very close to the water line from the southern Bay of Puck side or as locals say “Small Sea” side. It offers great views on open sea with hundreds of windsurfers and kite-surfers.
The next part of the route from Jastarnia to Hel leads through very beautiful pine forest. The surface of the path changes couple of times and the path itself behave more like a snake trying to get to a juicy bite. The path is used by bikers but it is safe as they rarely go fast and there is not many of them.
Path through a forest on the dunes
If you prefer to run in a shade then there is a path from Kuznica to Jastarnia leading through the forest covering dunes next to the beach from the “Big Sea” side. At first it is only a path but it changes slowly in a wider ground road when approaching Jastarnia. I recommend making a short stop 3 km before Jastarnia to visit fortifications from The Second World War.
The beach
If you see yourself training like this guy with a strange accent then Hel is also for you. The beach from the Baltic Sea side is as long as peninsula itself. I tried it couple of times when a tiny forest path started to gradually disappear in front of me and the only way to move forward was to use the beach. It is not a place for a gentle jog, trust me. But so much fun! The beaches in the Hel are very popular during the summer so if you want to do the beach run make sure it happens in the morning well before 9am or in the evening after 7pm.
Conclusions
In general, if it happens that you spend your holidays there but you need to carry on with your training or just want to do something else then frying yourself on the beach, windsurfing or biking then it is not a problem with finding interesting places for a run there. Also, remember to greet other runners that you meet on the road as it seem to be a common behaviour in Poland.
I recorded some GPS data from my runs there.
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