GREGORY HRUSHCHAK 37, Lviv
SOCIAL NT MOVEME
RUNNING IN A WAR ZONE These Ukrainians have committed to staying active despite the Russian invasion – and they feel stronger for it AFTER RUSSIA INVADED UKRAINE
on 24 February this year, life inside the eastern European country transformed into a frantic combination of fleeing citizens and soldiers taking up arms. For days, Ukrainians holed up in shelters and underground metro stations as air-raid sirens blared through the night. But as the weeks and months progressed, regional Strava feeds began to fill up again with cycling and running routes, as athletes found ways to keep up their training amid days that felt otherwise
024 RUNNERSWORLD.COM/UK JULY 2022
anxious and surreal. ‘It’s my way to return to ordinary, normal life and clear my brain,’ said Maksym Lievliev of Chernivtsi, a 37-year-old runner who was on a train from Kharkiv to Kyiv en route to getting his UK visa for the Cardiff Half Marathon when the war broke out and cancelled his plans for the foreseeable future. And Lievliev is not alone in deciding it’s worth the risk to keep moving. Here, we tell the story of four runners who are continuing their training regimens during a uniquely terrifying time.
‘My family says, “You’re crazy! It’s a war, and you run?” But after running, I can think about the current situation in some new way. I can overcome my emotion and feel so much better. After I run to a lake, I dive into cold water and dress and run home. It’s a new way to get your body fresh. Last year, I ran about 5,000km. On average, that’s more than 10km a day. I have two kids, aged six and eight, and a wife. I have a brother in Germany; they live with him now. We booked a bus and it took more than a day to transfer from Lviv to Berlin. There was huge confusion on the border, especially on the first day of the war. In the west, near the Poland border, it’s much safer than in Kyiv. But even today, a few bombs landed near our airport. I planned to start running this morning and saw that there’s an aircraft alarm, “You need to go to shelter.” I needed to postpone my running for two hours.’
