Happy New Year to you !

I hope you enjoyed your party or whatever… myself, I entered the new year in adventurous fashion, namely by running the Zürich New Year marathon. Due to fresh snow and therefore ‘uneven’ and difficult conditions the race proved to be extremely tough to complete… but both I and my travel mate Jørn Pedersen prevailed and could thus write marathon no. 1 for year 2009 on our race list at 5 am 01-Jan-2009 😉

What a delightful way to enter a new year… well… enjoy the picures here and think for yourself.

To elaborate a bit on my previous post, I will mention a few of the biggest marathon expericences of 2008.

The year started off rather badly with a flu&fever run in the old Elbtunnel in Hamburg, Germany, however, I managed to get through even though I should have kept in bed for sure. A month later I was back in Hamburg and a little better fit for fight in the charming small race Ôjendorfer See marathon. Even more ‘speed’ was gained in the first Capital marathon of the year, Paris, where we were very lucky with good weather.

Speed (a kinky concept when connected with me…) was also at focus in the beautiful Zürich marathon where I finally broke my 2 year old PR… running by the lake and viewing the Alps in the horisont is pure bliss for sure ! Then, only ten days later came THE very highlight og the year, namely the five marathons within four days in Skövde, Sweden. For me, this was an epic achievement and changed my outlook on what is actually possible.

Rather impossible or out of this world seems the 400 marathons of the in Denmark legendary Erhard Filterborg.. I had the pleasure of celebrating this run together with Erhard at close hand in Copenhagen marathon, my second Capital run of his year. The third came shortly after in beautiful Stockholm, Sweden, and in one of the best races even ever, I would say, just a perfect day and a fantastic and very scenic route.

Then in June and July followed three weekends in row with double marathons and the two-in-a-day feat at ôjendorfer See and Bremerhaven was another big goal for me to reach. I finished the second run in Bremerhaven two minutes to Midnight, easily clear of the next date.

Later in the Summer followed the extraordinary beautiful race in Kalundborg and for sure the hills here provided good training for the unique and also very , very tough race in Davos, the renowed Swiss Alpine 42K where I even ran in my Spiderman suit (as in Aabenraa) and appeared on the National Swiss Television !

More dressing up came a good month later in the legendary Medoc marathon, a treat of winecastles, happy runners and lots of French Wine, perhaps not the best combo for a fast marathon time… but a great and truly uniue experience for sure !

Same thing goes for the next Capital run in Budapest where i again managed to set a new PR, perhaps inspired by running besides the calm Donau River. More River was seen in Frankfurt am Main, a ‘typical’ German and extremely well-organized marathon and the first of two in that weekend, namely followed by Dublin the very next day ! Again, two days with great autumn weather and a famous double in the belt.

THEN… 2-Nov-2008 .. the historic day for me when I ran my marathon no. 100, just short of 4 1/2 years after the first one. It was a relief finally achieve this goal.. and could it have happened better than with my friends Anders Munch Madsen and Alex Lundahl celebrating their marathons no. 400 and 200 also, respectively… I think not ! What a day !

In the closing month of the year I discovered a little gem that I for sure will nurse a lot more in the future, the peaceful and meditative race at Teichwiesen, Hamburg, probably the most frequent marathon in the world and nicely arranged so by my new friend Christian Hottas, one of the most experienced long-distance runners in the world, at least counted on number of races.

There have been lots of other nice races this year, of course, should I mention just a few it would be my own GARMIN Ruderdal marathon with four appearances and the renewed Odense marathon which I also treasured a lot. And so forth… yes, it has been an eventful year including the 5-in-fourdays feat (Skövde), 7 doublets (incl. two-on-the-same-date) and the 100 marathon jubilee.

So.. how to keep fit for all of this… well… the runing takes care of itself… and the rest… we have people to do 😉

Happy New Year 2009 and best of luck with your running. See ya out there !

Just like the last years, I give my you my take on the best marathons in 2008, i.e. amongst the ones I have participated in myself. Incredibly, it looks like that I will reach around 41 marathons completed in 2008 alone making it 107 in toto for me ultimo 2008.

I have divided the marathons into four groups. I have left ‘my own’ run GARMIN Rudersdal marathon out of my evaluation.  As always, you find links to the races via ‘My marathons’ in the menu.

Overall
1. Swiss Alpine 42K (Switerzerland)
2. Skövde 5-days (Sweden)
3. Stockholm (Sweden)
4. Medoc (France)
5. Zürich (Switerzerland)

Big-city marathons
1. Stockholm (Sweden)
2. Zürich (Switerzerland)
3. Frankfurt (Germany)
4. Budapest (Hungary)
5. Paris (France)

Nature runs
1. Swiss Alpine 42K (Switerzerland)
2. Medoc (France)
3. Kalundborg Summer (Denmark)
4. Extreme (Denmark)
5. Teichwiesen (Germany)

Small races
1. Skövde 5-days (Sweden)
2. Odense (Denmark)
3. Glögg (Denmark)
4. Vänersborg (Sweden)
5. Öjendorfer See – in March  (Germany)

These are lists based on my personal experiences, of course. To mentain memory of the best races ‘ever’, I better have a category of the ‘all-time best’ marathons as well. Here, the big marathons do live up to their famous names !

Best ever
1. New York (USA)
2. Swiss Alpine 42K (Switerzerland)
3. Hamburg (Germany)
4. Vienna (Austria)
5. Rome (Italy)

Lately, I have recieved kind attention from various media, cf. the links under my section ‘In the Press’. On the feat of my first 100 marathons I have appeared twice in internal media within the Novo Nordisk Group, potentially with around 30.000 readers on my article on the NovoHealth website. It is for sure a great honour to provide inspiration to the many and often already very ressourceful colleagues in the Novo Group,

Also, as hinted by the image above, I have been interviewed by the legendary Danish reporter Peter Fredberg of the newspaper B.T., Peter himself being a renowed member of the Danish Marathon Klub 100. As you can infer from the image, my running ‘competitor’ May-Britt Hansen is also featured in acknowledge of her impressive and very fast entrance on the National Danish Ultramarathon team. Well done, May-Britt !

So danes, do order a copy of the Dourun 2009 calendar already today 😉

At last I reached a great goal that I have had for some time… clinching 100 marthons !

It is hard to describe what a relief it is to fulfill an achievement like this.. at first, a goal only ‘absurd’, later ‘maybe once… in a far and distant future’, later again ‘perhaps within some years’… and suddenly ‘quite close’. Well, fact is that it took me less than 4 1/2 years to run the first 100 marathons, a feat that is extraordinary and clearly record material in both Denmark and probably many other countries. 

Never mind records, though. What is important is all the adventures, travels and most importantly many, many good friends that the marathons have given me. Let me give a short personal eveluation of the first 100 marathons:

Biggest experiences: New York 2006 and Swiss Alpine 42K 2008
Personally: My many new good friends in the running community
Persons: My mentors Lennart Skoog (600+ marathons) of Sweden and Anders Munch Madsen (400+) of Denmark
Most important travels: Berlin 2004 and London 2005 with Marathon Travel Club … leading the way…
Most important moment: Kalundborg Advent 2005… discovering the marathon sub-culture…
In line of duty: As Organizer of GARMIN Rudersdal Marathon

The run nr. 100 itself was truly a great expericence as well… so many of our friends were there and ran with us… yes, as the picture indicates we celebrated three milestones, namely Anders Munch Madsen (400), Alex Lundahl (200) and myself Tor Rønnow (100) … and we had a wonderful day and crossed the finish line together.

You can see the pictures here.