Marathon training in Poland

Like a lot of Northeastern students, exercise became an important part of my daily routine when I first moved to Boston. With the unpredictability of college life, I find comfort in the stability of exercise – not to mention, it's a great habit for combatting the freshman fifteen. Moving to Poland, I knew I would be facing very different stresses and, without access to Marino and Squashbusters, running is the only way I would be able to exercise. To motivate me to implement running into my Polish routine, I registered for the Baltimore Half-Marathon, giving me 3.5 months to train for the race in my hometown. Unfortunately, no matter how often I regretted this decision, the registration fee is non-refundable, so there was no getting out of training.

The culture of running in the U.S. is one of universal popularity. As one of the most popular form of exercise, running routes can be found in even the smallest towns in the Midwest. Many countries have some sort of running culture, although local customs may alter seemingly obvious aspects to running. In Greece, for example, it is considered rude to wave at fellow runners as you pass one another and in Oświęcim, very few go running on Sundays. Understanding a country’s running “scene” is a way to see how imbedded these little customs are in the culture of the country, so it's just a matter of researching that and creating the safest routes possible prior to embarking.

Running, especially in the beginning of my co-op, allowed me to explore Oświęcim in a way I would not get by simply walking around town. Through routes that varied in length, I learned about the culture of living in a former Nazi town, and the normality this history possesses. Oświęcim is about 11 square miles, so my longer runs brought me outside of the city into the neighboring towns. Rural areas surround Oświęcim, so it was rather normal for me to run past corn fields or through forested parks during my route. It will be odd to return to Boston and not greet the free-roaming cows and chickens in the “wild” during my run.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran around the Soła river which runs through the city center, and, assuming I was aware of my location, I took a turn thought to be a shortcut. I should say that I have a great talent of getting lost really easily, so easily that I am inclined to put it in the “special skills” section of my resume. Anyway, I ended up on the other side of the Soła which was a pleasant detour until I began to see barbed wire in my peripheral vision: I stumbled upon Brzeszcze, a province of Oświęcim, and the location of Auschwitz II-Birkenau. I immediately stopped and sat down to attempt to process. When I get lost on my runs in Boston (which happens more often than I would like to admit), I find myself at the aquarium. In Oświęcim, I find myself near a former Nazi extermination and concentration camp.

With only 6 more days left, I want to circle back to one of the first themes I encountered during my time in Poland: normality. To me, being from the United States, living near sites of mass trauma is abnormal. I do not know what it is like to be confronted by my country’s difficult heritage on a daily basis when I walk outside my door. I am disappointed in my ability to judge those living in Oświęcim so easily. Why would these people choose to live next door to the largest site of Nazi extermination? By the same logic, why did I choose to live in Catonsville, Maryland? I didn't, my parents bought a house and raised my siblings and I there, so should I be judged if I also choose to live in my hometown? I am not phased by the sights of Catonsville, just as those in Oświęcim have normalized sights of barbed wires and chimneys.

Oświęcim is much more than a murder site. Although this is, for obvious reasons, a significant part of its history, I can understand the want to emphasize other facets. Oświęcim didn't choose to become Auschwitz, the Nazis made that decision.

Half-marathon training in Poland has become normal to me. This normality involves cows, old Polish men biking 2 miles per hour with a chicken in his basket, the constant smell of fresh bread, and barbed wire. I am not ashamed of this sense of normality, although I am critical and analytical. I already know this 3-month co-op has been one of the most life-changing experiences I will ever have, seen most prominently by the fact that even something so simple as running, in Oświęcim, became a dramatic, blog-post-worthy lesson.