Norway to Greece, beyond the finish line

Running from norway to greece

Beyond the finish line

In 2019, Aidas embarked on a new challenge - to conquer a 5827-kilometer route from Nordkapp, Norway, to the Greek town of Porto Kagio. Aidas hoped to complete it in 70 days, but this challenge took an unfortunate turn. Since the Lithuanian ran without any support team and entirely alone, he pushed a cart weighing about 55 kilograms, containing all the necessary items, first aid supplies, and food supplements.

A. Ardzijauskas ran 70-90 km per day while pushing a carriage through countries like Norway, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece. There were very steep switchbacks that were difficult to overcome with a heavy carriage. Throughout the entire run, there were maybe three moments when it became very difficult, but you just took a breather, calmed down, and kept running.

In his cart, Aidas had all the essentials: a tent, stove, sleeping bag, food supplements, cocktails specially prepared for him by nutrition expert Gintarė Jonaitytė, healthy food supplements, and solar panels on the cart to charge devices.

"I am my own musician and my own director," joked A. Ardzijauskas.

Emotions sometimes pushed a healthy mind aside, but after a while, you kept moving forward.

A. Ardzijauskas found himself constantly thinking about everything—the weather, the forest. When his children called, they occupied his thoughts. He even pondered how having the wind at his back would make running easier. However, despite his determination to achieve his new goal until the end, he ultimately had to call it quits. On Monday, the athlete announced that he was ending his run. He was only about 300-400 km away from his target distance. Unfortunately, while descending a hill due to worn brake pads, he couldn't stop the carriage. It veered off to the side, causing A. Ardzijauskas to fall and strain his groin.

Aidas chose this route because post-Soviet countries have wider roads. It's simply faster to run there. Finland and Norway have very little traffic, and in Russia, the roads are about two meters wide. Meanwhile, in Poland, the roads are barely two meters wide. People in the Balkans are cautious enough. Running with a carriage in Poland or the Czech Republic would be quite difficult.

"In life, you need to have enough things to carry them while running with a backpack," said Chris McCandless, who journeyed into the wilderness. "Or a cart that you could push while running," would likely be said by Lithuanian firefighter and long-distance runner Aidas Ardzijauskas.

Even though he didn't finish this particular challenge, he didn't stop and challenged himself for more challenging runs.