During the last 4 years I've written many blog posts about running in the mountains.
For whatever reason, ultraruns through the wilderness of the Low Beskids are one of my favourite activities. I’m talking about the Łemkowyna Ultra Trail, 150 km of fighting nature and distances for 30 hours. I've participated in this run three times already. Two times it was 70 km (completed once, failed the other) and in 2015 I took part in the main 150 km run. Getting to the finish line and receiving the finisher’s blouse is my greatest achievement when it comes to mountain runs. If you want to read about this, you will find the texts here.
Łemkowyna is organised by Mr Krzysiek Gajdziński. Our paths have been coming together every time I wrote something about the Wigry Marathon or the Łemkowyna on the blog. And finally some runner recommended me and my company to Krzysiek, who was struggling after a hacking attack on the run’s webpage.
Afterwards it was like a walk in the park. Later on we’ve created a compact site for Krzysiek for his "Kayf" group. The result was small, fun, and awesome.
And then the day I was dreading finally came.
Krzysiek called and asked whether we would be interested in creating a website for his most important work, that is the Łemkowyna Ultra Trail...
Why did I dread this? Because Krzysiek is a perfectionist and a visionary. He never rests on his laurels, he travels the world, observes others to introduce the best practices into his runs. I am not overstating it when I’m saying that the Łemkowyna Ultra Trail is the best mountain run in Poland, whether it comes to the organisation of the event, the atmosphere or the tamed (?) wilderness of its location.
When the day came, I nearly stood to attention. When it came to this project, money was not the issue. It was all about my honour :) Because in the end I got to know the mountain runner community well, even very well. I was able to understand the client’s role perfectly. What’s more I had help from several passionate testers, who took pleasure in pointing out the errors of the first designs.
I knew that the webpage needs to be first and foremost practical.
It needs to inform a potential runner precisely about all the key information, but it also needs show off an atmosphere... An atmosphere of going for 30 hours in nearly freezing temperatures, for 2 days without sleep, for 150 km in a land of 5,000 m elevation differences, where bears, lynxes and wildcats live. I discovered this first hand...
The resulting webpage is one that we probably love the most.
I love it so much, that I lost my distance. I am extremely proud that Nabucoo helped create this perfect puzzle of Krzysiek Gajdziński, the Łemkowyna Ultra-Trail.