Running in Crete With Cretan Wild: A Family Morning on the Malaxa Trail

Some of the best runs happen off the itinerary entirely. On a family holiday in Crete last week, my three siblings and I traded a lazy beach morning for something better: a mountain trail above Chania with a local guide who turned out to have one of the more remarkable running stories I've heard.

Her name is Helen Galerakis, founder of Cretan Wild. We found her through her own site, not through Iver — more on that in a minute — and booked her for a run up the Malaxa mountain range, fifteen minutes outside town.

The Malaxa loop: ruins, a spring, and three churches

We started in Nerochorou, a small village at the foot of the mountain, and climbed from there — a 5-mile loop with about 1,200 ft of vertical gain, 90% of it non-technical underfoot. That last part matters: this wasn't a technical scramble, it was a proper trail run that four siblings with very different running backgrounds could all do together and actually enjoy.

The route earns every bit of that climb. Early on we passed old stone ruins, then an ancient spring where you can stop and refill with cold, fresh water. From there the trail strings together three small churches, each with its own personality: the first is a favourite hangout for the local goats and opens onto a huge panoramic view; the second sits hidden in a grove of wildflowers with Chania laid out below it; the third perches on the side of a rock face, and is where you'll want your camera out for the walk back down.

By the time the bay and the city came into full view on the descent — boats in the harbor, the coastline curling away toward the White Mountains — it was clear why Helen builds her routes around moments like this rather than just distance.

Meet Helen: the guide behind Cretan Wild

Helen's own path to guiding runs in Crete is not a typical one. After 20 years in corporate finance across international cities, she took up running at 39 — and three years later ran across the entire state of Arizona, 840 miles in 17 days, setting a women's world record in the process.

What she found on that run mattered more to her than the record itself: a sense of freedom and purpose that corporate life hadn't given her. She moved to Crete to reconnect with nature and her roots, and started Cretan Wild to share that with other people — trail running, guided hiking, running holidays and custom outdoor adventures across Chania and the White Mountains (Lefka Ori). Her philosophy, in her own words, is simple: movement is medicine, and anyone can start, no matter their background or pace.

You feel that on the trail. Nobody in our group was fast that morning, and it didn't matter once.

The Iver-friendly version: book Helen on Iver

The Malaxa loop above isn't something you can currently book through Iver — it's one of Cretan Wild's own trail routes, and we booked it directly with Helen. But she is on Iver, hosting a different — much flatter — introduction to her city.

If a mountain loop with goats and hidden churches sounds like your kind of morning, it's worth messaging Helen about it once you've booked — Cretan Wild's trail and hiking routes are very much part of what she can show you in Chania, even if the booking itself happens off-platform for now.

Why this is exactly the idea behind Iver

This is, in miniature, why we built Iver: the best way to actually get to know a place is to run it with someone who lives there. A city run or a mountain trail, an hour or a whole morning — the destination matters less than running it with a local who knows the good version of it. Wherever you're headed next, browse hosts by city and see who's waiting to show you around.

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