…well, check it out yourself in the New York Times from yesterday! My name and finish time is in there! How crazy is that!? If you want to look me up, click on the picture and a bigger version will open. Thank you New York Times! You make me feel very special 🙂
I have been using the word “mad” quite a lot recently. It seems to be the best word in my vocabulary to describe New York. Take the buildings as an example: A rigid grid of streets filled with randomly joined buildings in all shapes, sizes and styles. It makes you think of a horde of monster children gone crazy with their monster Lego bricks. Or the public transport “system” where I still struggle to recognise anything that resembles, well, a system. The…
This must be the logistically most complex (or adventurous) travel to the start line I have done so far. It sounded quite ok in theory, but from Jersey City to the ferry to the shuttle bus to the villages finding your right areas, drop off, corral (pen)… Well, I made it and being a good German I made it far ahead of time (big thanks to Simone at this point for all the help!) More than an other hour…
I am in New York at Central Park, ready for my dress rehearsal run for the marathon on Sunday. In my official NYC Marathon shirt and all. It feels quite surreal: Knowing the city only from movies and TV shows, it feels like being beamed right into one them. Running in Central Park and along Hudson River is the plan and feels like a dream come true. Despite some more curve balls that had been thrown at me…
Ok, it finally paid off: for years I am feeling far too paranoid when it comes to plotting plan B and C for getting to one of London airports via public transport and allow far too much time, which is then usually spent at the gate, waiting for boarding. But not today, when I took the earliest tube possible to catch the flight to New York. The situation out of my bad dreams happened: stuck on the Piccadilly line due…
I am in and absolutely grobsmacked! I thought getting a place for New York is already stretching the favors of the odds and much more than I could have hoped for and now  London, too! – !!!! What are the odds for that!!?? They are breaking the news to you by sending out this magazine, where the cover normaly says “Sorry, not this time” or something like that. But now it says “YOU’RE IN!”. I am over the moon and…
It was truly awesome, on different levels. First, my knee did not play up. An actually quite impossible thing, considering this month’s records of aborted runs, no runs and painful runs caused by my ITB. During the Marathon I had as good as no knee pain. I did get my knee taped for the first time though. They offered it at the marathon fair. But can it make such a difference? I rather claim this as an other running miracle and…
View from my hotel room, 7am. This is kilometre 39, so around lunch time I will hopefully be on this road running towards the finish line of this year’s Berlin Marathon. Very mixed feelings: Very excited to be part of such a mega event, but I am quite underprepared, because knee pain had been grunding my running to a hold. I now know it’s just ITB. I did do some stretches over the last days, which helped. I managed to…
First: I came Second! I never came second in anything before. And with a fully operational knee I probably would have had a change to come first. How crazy is that!? (Well, it can only be explained by the limited number of ambitious marathon runners in this event.) Second: The recorded time on the organisers result page is messed up. I did not do it in 3 hours 10. Definitely not. Add an hour and it’s more like it. Not…
Made it to the start, which is always promising and half way to the finish. I start to forget about my knee niggles… It’s a great athmosphere, feels like a home run with a big twist. #excited You can still sponsor me: https://give.net/royruns
The Capital Marathon Challenge starts in a couple of hours. Getting ready and I am slightly worried, because my knee is not 100%. Will be an interesting one and make the challenge a bit different. You can actually track my progress here. My number is 3001. And if you though about sponsoring me, now is a good time. I have not reached my target yet, so every little counts 🙂 https://give.net/royruns
The London Capital Marathon Challenge is open for supporters all way through. Which surely includes friends who want to join me for parts of the run! One of my running friends is already thinking about it. Anyone else? Here is the full information package and here you can find the full route on Google Maps. It is Saturday, 29 August, from Hackney Marshes and I start at 7am! And if you want to support me but don’t run, there are good news! I run this for charity…
The next marathon is kind of a anniversary: My 25th since I ran the London Marathon for charity 3 1/2 years ago. Running the London Marathon was an awesome experience, the running and the fundraising alike, both equally challenging and humbling, but very rewarding. End of August I will run a marathon in London again. It’s not the big one of course (which is always in April), but an alternative one, that starts by the Olympic Park and ends outside London in Hertford. And I want…
I can’t believe it: I PB-ed! Only by 40 seconds to be fair (official time is 3:27:50), but hey I PB-ed!! And the person responsible for that is Ole, a guy who wanted to overtake me at kilometre 7 or so and it took him 20 kilometre to finish his job. Hahaha. As a result I ran a lot faster than I naturally would have run, and Ole was also good company and it gives you definitely a boost, when you make…
It’s 8:20pm, I made it to the start line, which is always promising. The temperature is not as cold as I feared, maybe my running tights are to much. The guys here in Tromso are partying as a warm up, which really gets you into the mood! The sun is coming out, no sign of surprise rain. It’s going to be fun, I can feel it.