How I found out about Haglund deformity. When you run more than 10 years, you make a lot of mistakes. I have done dozens myself, and the biggest, I guess, was to neglect the pain from my right Achile tendon for more than one year. The pain is not huge, apart from some certain moments,…
La Digue, the pearl of Seychelles – with the heart in Le Domaine de L’Orangeraie!
Seychelles, and especially La Digue, should be for everybody on the bucket list. We were lucky enough to go there, in May 2025, for our honeymoon. Now I am trying to express everything we lived so intensively in words. It is not easy, but then I will split the story in two, because there are…
Cristian Săpunaru – the child who lived the dream
On 19.05.2025, among thousands of tears, Cristian Săpunaru played his last game on Giulești, for Rapid Bucharest. A bitter evening, in a 1-4 loss against a lamentable CFR Cluj team. A shame that Săpunaru’s colleagues didn’t fought at least this time, for the meaning of the event. But what is really the meaning of the…
Băneasa Forest Run: both sides of the story, one conclusion
In November 2024, I’ve decided to participate again at Băneasa Forest Run, after a long pause. This time it was about the 11K race, which I have never attended before, but wanted to in 2022. It just didn’t happen, because of an injury. After some half-marathons in the past, in the famous Băneasa forest, finally…
Bodø / Glimt – successful story of Norway: first European semifinalist, in 2025!
We begun 2025 stuck in Bodø, because of a snowstorm, and heavy snow. Even though our favorite place remains Tromsø, this town was pleasant from our point of view. Three months and a bit later, the same story: a snow storm arrived in Northern Norway, so Bodø was covered in white. Just before the first…
FIFA World Cup is becoming a joke: please stop that!
We are one year away from the FIFA World Cup 2026, held, for the first time in three countries: USA, Canada and Mexico. Also, the first edition with… 48 teams. Almost a quarter of the countries from all the world. A disgrace. Why am I saying that? Because while following to globalize and to offer…
Essentials: the feeling of failing to finish a half-marathon
11.65 kilometers. I stop my watch. The feeling is different. After more than 150 races of all sorts in which I’ve started in more than nine years, for the first time I call off one voluntarily. It is strange. I try to announce my DNF, but can’t find where I should do it. I am…
Running a personal best by accident: half-marathon in 1:28:40
Don’t consider this as an example, because it is not. I am preparing for a half-marathon personal best, so need to deliver some proper training. The thing is, that in one day, particularly 5th of March 2025, reality drifted to another path, without having anything planned. The plan was a longer tempo, of 11 –…
Thoughts about Oradea, Cluj-Napoca, and their railway
Some more thoughts about… the railway! Living in Bucharest and coming from Bacău, a town from the Eastern part of Romania, I’ve heard, not once, how wonderful are Cluj-Napoca and Oradea, two cities from the Central – West part of the country. Except they are… not! Wait, don’t judge this from the start, because I…
Travelling by train in Romania: Bucharest – Cluj-Napoca – Șuncuiuș
In the last 20 years, I’ve travelled a lot by train, many times in Romania, and I think I could write a novel if I want to. But I don’t want to, because it won’t be a happy, successful one. Rather full of grief, hopelessness and amusement, if you can stomach everything. The main railroad…