New York City Marathon 40th Anniversary

stats of this week: run 18km
stats of previous week: run 60km, 2 gyms

Greetings from New York City where I hope to finish my 5th consecutive NYC Marathon tomorrow. I have done a number of marathons without proper training but this one will be the worst! At least I managed to do just one long run of 26km last weekend in Dublin where I took the DART train to the coastal village of Bray and ran back to the hotel.

However, I will try to beat my Helsinki time of 3:59. Watch out for race no 10471 at
http://www.nycmarathon.org/ . I am in the first wave starting at 9.40 am local time which is German time 3.40 pm.

As usual I am here with my favourite travel agency http://www.interair.de/ . The Massai like chap beside me is Wolfgang Münzel, a former world class hill runner. Note that I am looking slightly overweight next to Wolfgang. He is the slimmest man I have ever seen. He is now 56 but still holds a number of course records of Alpine hill runs like the Matterhorn Race which he won several times, like many other important hill races. I am proud to be able to have a run with him along Hudson River. Here we are posing while resting on the newly opened High Line - a garden promenade above 10th Avenue.

Intermediate Home Visit

Back from Nepal, meanwhile I have already published a too big gallery at picasa before I will start to work on my ordinary Annapurna Circuit trekking report. This will take some time I have to admit as I am about to leave for Dublin at first followed by New York City.

Since the Helsinki Marathon in August I haven't done a proper long run. I will run NYC with the worst preparation for a marathon I ever did. I am sure I will be suffering. That's runner's life anyway.

Here's a taste of my ample photo collection.

Village life at Ghaza

Bodnath Stupa Surroundings

Observing Kathmandu Traffic

Kathmandu Sales Kids

Manang And Annapurna Range

Off to Nepal

stats of the short week: run 22km

Folks

I regret there will be no posting until late October when I hope to be safely back from Nepal. I am doing the Annapurna Trek, the most crowded walkers' highway of the Himalaya. I think there should be a reason that everybody goes there. I will report if there really is.

Enjoyable race day

stats of the week: Run 44km, Cycled 112km, 2 gyms

Although I didn't feel really fit and the knee was slightly hurting I took the bait to race in the neighbourship. A fairly small event - apart from hundreds of kids - of hilly tarmacced 8 laps of 1 km. It was as tough as I expected and I finished 1 min 39 secs slower than two years ago.

As you see I didn't compete all-out but it was still a very tough time to clock at 38:45 min what placed me 12th out of 49 runners overall. Looking back at recent weeks of very low key training I didn't cherish any illusions. It was a highly enjoyable day - due to all the pleasant people I met.

Race and Work

stats of the week: run 28km, cycled 67km, 1 gym

In recent days I was rather busy with our yearly charity run www.sterntaler-lauf.de .

Once more it turned out to be a success with 874 entries and 733 finishers. That's a loss of 16% on the day what unfortunately is quite normal nowadays.

I would recommend everyone who regularly takes part in races to get involved in organising such an event. Next time you go for a race you will have a different view of it. We were around 80 volunteers to serve the runners. And some of us had been working for weeks to prepare all the things needed.

Dancing the pace

stats of the week: run 32km, cycled 169km, 1 gym

I increased my cycling mileage as I learnt that this kind of movement helps my knees to get back to a painfree job. This week reminded me to stay happy. I should really be grateful to be able to complete this amount of workouts.

After a fast flat bike tour of 113km on Saturday I enjoyed to escort B to fast 10km race in the City of Dortmund on Sunday afternoon. She totally ran on her own, I didn't help in any way. I was just happy - as someone described - to dance around her for 48 minutes along the 8-lap-route.

No pain but strain

stats of the week: run 26km, cycled 106km, 2 gyms

The stats look better than the week has been. Still suffering from a cold I struggled to get back to regular workouts. Finally I felt cured and once again took part in the traditional local onion relay race - a Saturday night fun event in downtown Witten. I had to run the final part of five members and luckily I was the last one by far when I took over the onion baton. So I decided to enjoy the short run of 600 meters. Two days later I have to notice that it was long enough to strain my knee! I'll have to cut down my training again.