Ultra Helping

For the majority of participants, endurance sports events, such as ultra cycling or ultra running competitions, are first and foremost an opportunity to challenge their own organism, their own limitations, and to test their own limits. This makes the traditionally understood competition, although important, often recede into the background, the fight takes place in the minds of the competitors, and the coveted trophy is simply a medal or the jersey of the competition finisher. At the same time this struggle is often stretched in time and measurable by an impressive number of cycling or running kilometres, differences in elevation or other parameters. The possibility of following these struggles, the awareness of the fact that sportsmen accomplish things which are inaccessible to ordinary people, very often makes the adventure with endurance sports create conditions for various actions and charity collections. This is how e.g. Joe Barr began his adventure with ultra cycling, when he started to ride long distances in order to raise funds for the fight against cancer.

As Race Around Poland organisers, we try to support various charity actions ourselves, take part in them or encourage our participants to conduct them. If you have any ideas on how to use your participation in RAP for a good cause - let us know, we will help you spread the word! We'll give you space on our website where you can talk about your action and reach as many potential interested as possible.

As you may know, Race Around Poland has also become a partner of the "Filipowe Kilometry" action, whose aim is to combine sports competition with the promotion of knowledge about autism among children and the fight against autism by supporting the rehabilitation of a sick person. Since then, each participant is aware that by taking part in the RAP he supports this action and we, as the organisers, will transfer to the action's account the amount depending on the number of kilometres covered by the participants during the race. 

Today, we are giving the floor to the creator of this action and to the man who for years has been inspiring thousands of cyclists enthusiasts in Poland to overcome their own barriers together and to ride Filip Kilometres:

A DISTANCE FIGHT AGAINST AUTISM

Philip is a smiling 11-year-old boy. His smiling face, however, hides the problems he struggles with every day. The main one is autism, which makes Philip a unique child. That is why the father of the main character came up with a unique idea - to create a campaign, which will not be a simple collection of donations, but will be a daily challenge, motivation to act and overcome oneself. Philip's parents do not treat autism like a sentence.

- We do not hide the fact that it is a very tough and difficult opponent to deal with, and above all extremely demanding. That is why in the mind of the child's father an idea was born to launch the "Filip Kilometres" campaign. The goal, simple! Join the club in Strava application, overcome yourself, your own barriers just like Philip does it every day. Walk Filip kilometres - for those who overcome the distance of 1503 kilometres, Filip will give a commemorative medal of action. Thanks to the huge commitment of parents, over 30 thousand participants took part in the five editions of the action. The result? 45 MILLION OF PHILIP'S KILOMETRES!!!

- The whole action would not have been successful, if not for the involvement of all the people taking part in the action. It was them who pushed the action forward, pouring hope into our hearts," says Philip's dad, Dawid. This is not the end of the Salamon family's ambitious plans.

On 24 July this year, I am setting off from Warsaw for Filip on another cycling journey. This time, I am taking part in the longest cycling race organised so far in our country, "Race Around Poland", during which I will be promoting the sixth edition of our action - explains Dawid Salamon.

All donations made by donors go to Philip's account in the Foundation for Children "Zdążyć z Pomocą" and are 100% allocated for his current therapy and rehabilitation.

Filip's dad is a finisher of, among others, Ultramarathon Baltic - Bieszczady Tour, Ultramarathon Endurance Gravel Race Pomorska 500, Ultramarathon Piękny Wschód, completed Ultramarathon Tour de Silesia 2 times. Moreover, together with his Friends, promoting the Filipowe Kilometers campaign, he cycled around Poland in 2018. A year later he cycled through the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Italy to Rome.

The text was written in collaboration with Dawid Salamon