Support Miroslav Pražma

Thanks for reading this! My name is Miroslav Pražma and I live in Praha, Czech Republic and I'd like to share my story.

I got my first skates at the age of 10 and inline skating became my passion immediately. At that time there weren't many competitions in my home country, hence I was competing once a year in an inline race, which has been part of the major running event in Prague - the Prague Marathon. Few years later, at the age of 14, this wasn't enough anymore. I joined my first inline club in Prague, Modrany where I practiced on the same fitness skates until I turned 15. Soon after my birthday I was allowed to start part-time job and from the very first salary I bought a pair of speed skates. When I've put them on for the first time I've been super excited and that's when I started dreaming. The dream is called national team.

I've been working hard for three seasons and the first successes were coming. First wins on the national level in the junior category. Top 10 results in local cup of inline marathons. Everything seemed to be on the right path, until I got into unpleasant moment, which changed my life. In a very short period of time I turned from a kid to an adult, who had to work full time and study at the same time. The dream was gone.

In the upcoming year I was able to settle things down and started doing inline speedskating again, this time as a hobby. And despite the lack of time for training I would still go to train twice or three times a week and just have fun competing in what I like so much. Even at this stage of my life I was able to rank 2nd in the Czech road championship, yet with big portion of luck. The truth is that the dream has still been in my head, but other priorities like going to work had to be on the first place.

Things went like this until December 2017 when ACL in my knee ruptured. I was laying in my bed, couldn't move a lot and had time to think. Work was and still is important in my life, because I believe that you have to trust in company you work for, you have to feel motivated, you have to find environment and people you like, hence I was happy from this perspective. But I realized that I'm getting older and older and I still didn't get anywhere close to my dream from 11 years ago, wearing a national team racesuit. I guess I don't have to explain how difficult it is to pay all the gear on your own from your salary while having bills to pay, but it was frustrating seeing people I was able to beat being funded from sponsors or richer clubs.

I decided that's not how the things are going to end however. I had to undergo a surgery and reconstruction of the ligament in October last year and I made a promise to myself. As soon as I'm able to move my leg, I'll get back to the grind. No more excuses. I've started training 8 times a week while working 40 hours a day and never complained about it, because that's part of the journey. No time during the day? I wake up at 5.30am and go to skate. It's -8°C outside? I go anyway. I'm sneezing or cold? I go anyway. Everybody has a dream, but not everybody has a grind. And I decided to stop talking and start exercising no matter what.

Now it's two months until the first race of the year and I'm getting closer every day, the less time the bigger the grind. And I know I can do it, as I was able to get on the podium in the last year's Czech marathon championship after many years. In order to qualify to the national team I need to have good results. And in order to have good results I have to compete in important competitions such as World Cup or German Inline Cup, which attract attention and above all, they're beyond my financial reach.

I know that the road to success will be costly. By supporting me today, you are investing into something bigger than just a fundraiser. I don't want to wake up at the age of 50 seeing that I wasn't able to reach my dream, I want to succeed really bad and you can become part of my journey. If you made it till this part I thank you from the bottom of my heart, please remember that every little means a lot to me.

Thank you for your support!
Miroslav

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