Piotrek is our friend whom we met for the first time more than 20 years ago. Over the years, he constantly amazed us with the extremely wide range of his outdoor activities and by taking on more and more ambitious challenges.
He is an outstanding athlete, coach, rock climbing instructor, speleologist, GOPR Senior Rescuer, President of the Mountain Marathons Foundation, which organizes, among others, the Lower Silesian Mountain Running Festival.

He has been practising endurance sports for over 25 years. He has competed in about 50 multidisciplinary competitions in Poland and around the world, with distances ranging from 150 km to over 1,000 km in a non-stop formula (including in Sweden, Croatia, Brazil, Scotland, Russia, Lithuania and the Arab Emirates).

He has participated in speleological exploration trips of the Polish Mountaineering Association (PZA) to cave systems of Austria, Ukraine and China. He has climbed in the Tatra Mountains, the Alps, the Pamir Mountains, Spitsbergen and the Himalayas.

Patagonia, fot. Piotr Dymus

However, “Herci” is, first and foremost, a seasoned runner matched by few others. He is a world-class ultra runner. The full list of competitions in which Piotrek took top positions is so long that you’d better make yourself a large mug of coffee before starting to read it.

Below are just a few of them:

UTMB – 170 km,
Transvulcania – 73 km,
Transalpine- 250 km,
TransGranCanaria -125 km,
Ultra Trail Mount Fuji – 170 km.

If you run, you know how much physical and mental effort it takes to achieve good results in ultramarathons. If you don't run, you can only try to imagine what it's like to run 100, 200, 300 km in the mountains at a very high pace. For us it’s just some sort of an outlandish concept!In 2014, he was classified in the TOP 10 of the Ultra-Trail Word Tour Series world ranking. He is also a four-time record holder of Bieg Rzeźnika (Butcher's Run) and a frequent podium finisher in many other mountain running races in Poland.

In 2016, Piotr Hercog launched his project – the Hercog Mountain Challenge, which involves taking part in extreme and unusual sports competitions or pursuing high-mountain and travel challenges.

fot. Piotr Dymus

In recent years, he has undertaken challenges, among others, in Siberia, the Caucasus, the Himalayas, the Alps, Patagonia, Peru, Colombia, the United States and Spitsbergen.

More about Piotrek:
http://www.piotrhercog.pl/piotr-hercog
http://www.piotrhercog.pl/mountain-challange

Elbrus

Hercog_Everest_przygotowania_fot. Kasia Biernacka

Hercog_Everest_przygotowania_fot. Kasia Biernacka

fot. Piotr Dymus