OCR... more than running

Fuck of, Corona! (Sorry!) This year nearly all events were canceled. The global pandemic made events, whether culture or sport, impossible. I don’t want to talk about corona! But I tried to motivate myself and my running club. So I challenged my club to run against me. All kilometers, which are run at the normal training days Tuesday and Thursday, will be added. These will be reduced by my own kilometers and the result will be paid in beer at the summer party of the club. Fun fact: A local TV-Station got interest to report about this:  

 Today for the third time at Kitzenhauslauf in Walheim near my home. It’s a yearly event which is sponsored by my club for all us who want to participate. The track is mostly in fields or woods and scenic beautiful. Nevertheless, it is a bit hard to run. The first 3 km of the 10 km long track are uphill and the rest of it is more or less wavy and a mix of uphill and downhill. For me the first part is easier than the wavy part. That’s because I can not get used to the constant change of ups and downs. I did not come in a flow. But okay, that’s the challenge!       I finished faster than last year but lost one place. The most pleasure was my club again. It’s every time nice to participate on a club event!

 The last weeks we did some changes in the communication tools in my club . We opened an WhatsAPP group and a calendar. Now we are able to communicate in (more or less) real time and everyone can publish run events in the calendar. So we all can run more together and participant on more events together! I like it because a club is more than running more or less two time a week together. And it works. It works because it was very easy that way to organize this funny event. We met on Friday evening and not only because we care about our nature, we drove together! It was a very rainy and cloudy day (better I should say week). An extremely weather phenomenon a hurricane destroyed a small town only 15km from my place. But we all were in a good mood and had fun to run! The start….it was still raining. Directly after the start I got to the first place. The track was very wet. There were some puddles who also could have seen as a sea. Maybe we should all have been wearing swimw...

It was a long time discussed in my club and at the end I just did. My club has its own website and there is an internal forum. But that is not state of the art. It’s not real-time communication and takes way too long. Spontaneity is something else and not possible. So I opened a whats-app-group with all phone numbers I knew. It worked! Within two days we were a little group of 10 who want to start at the Rursee-Marathon. This will be a great day - that was sure! Alone, the journey to the event was pure fun. We shared two cars and our mood got better with each kilometer we got closer to the start line. In the end we were almost euphoric. There are different distances to choose. I took (as usual) a distance around a half-marathon. I had to say it was a very natural track. Very nice landscape around the dam with some hard and high surprises. Some elevations were hard but possible to run, and so we all were happy to reach the finish! I sadly had to handle with a drop of bitte...

We arrived a little early at the ATG club home. Since we still had time, we enjoyed the still warm sun on the sports field, had fun and made the important selfie. The start was approaching, we were in the front third of the runners field and waited for the starting shot. “PENG” and off we went. First we had to run a lap around the sports field, to then leaf the sports field to go on the track. The track was very poisonous and hard. One rise followed the next. Some of them could only be walked, but not ran. And, because of the foliage, some downhill parts were very slippy. But, especially because of the foliage, the track was wonderful. I like the colors in the autumn. It’s crazy how wonderful the death can look. The Sun was shining, the weather was great and everywhere the smell and the look of autumn - love it! All runners were more than satisfied, with the services provided on the wonderful character trail and I got back to the ATG club home after 10,6km and 50:26 minut...

Lustlauf - Mein Verein e.V. wanted to make some self-promotion. We have a facebook account, an own website, and we are not unpopular. But advertising never hurts. So we wanted to make an image video. There were some ideas of what we wanted to film, but, sadly, nobody wanted to perform. So I did it alone….  

Yesterday I was at the Strong Viking . It was a great day but exhausting. And today my club “ Lustlauf - Mein Verein e.V. ” took part on the “Kitzenhauslauf”. I wouldn’t have taken part too because yesterday. But my club president ordered me to take part. I’m a very obedient underling and so it was necessary to obey! If you know me (and my president does) you know if you challenge me, I will do it all the more! I wasn’t sure about it, but I’m cheeky. And so I said it loud “If you challenge me, I will win at my age group!” I had very heavy legs. But who cares? I wanted to run! I wanted to show them all I could. And at the end I was the first of the Group M40 (Yes I became at this year 40). My president was very proud: I was standing on the top of the stairs. But he was also proud of all the other club runners. It was - like on every other day - very funny to see you all and run together!

It’s a nice and in one way special run. Not only that the trail is completely flat (the maximum different altitude per kilometer is 2 meters), it is only in forest. And you can choose or change your distant during the run. All runners start at the same time and there are four distances to choose: One lap is 7km and you can run up to 4 laps. You don’t need to choose it before the race and you don’t need to say anything about your plan how many laps you are going to run. Run as far as you can and if you are at your own end set the turn signal and take the exit way. It’s not at last for this reason a very popular event. No pressure, no force, only fun on running! Sure, many “ Lustläufer ” take part every year, and it’s one of the events with the most club runners of all. Maybe we will see us there next year :-)

Raeren - one of the nine municipalities of the German-speaking Community of Belgium and at the same time a border town near Aachen with about 11,000 inhabitants, of which about 50% are non-Belgians. So much for the location …. I was promised a very nice landscape run in and around the village of Raeren. But was the promise kept? Funfair in Raeren is also RaeRun time! A Track with potential to be an asshole! The Raerun started unspectacular, if at the same time also funny. Where is the start and finish area in the middle of a funfair surrounded by a roller coaster and bumper cars. A sensible symbiosis: evening party and during the day sport. The empty marquee was summarily used for registration, food and award ceremony - Top thought! We first ran on the streets of Raeren but already after less than 2 kilometers to swap the road for a cow pasture. I myself (you know it) come from the Trail and/or OCRun and I like trail running - that is, beyond the road and way - very much....

 

Again on the way with some mates of the “LustLauf”. This time we were 12 pleasure runners, and we rocked the Kitzenhauslauf in hot summer conditions. The run is sponsored by the club every year and it becomes more and more popularity for all Lustlauf runners. It is necessary to show all other (local) runners and sport friends the cohesion of the club. We act together as a group and, for example, we picked up not every single start number rather than all together. “Let’s go to the start line!” With a little delay we all started for the beautiful, but very selective route. The trail was a single up and down. At the end I couldn’t remember only one straight trail part. But apart from me and Mareike, all arrived nearly together to the finish. Mareike and me - we were like young horses. We couldn’t control our energy, and we had to run, run, run. So we got a bit quicker to the finish. But who cares? We are a club, a group….we are friends! Again a very nice and funny day! Thanks...

 On the way with some of my “ Lustlauf ” -mates  

 

…. 4 runners, 4 winners, 1 podium The third Selfkantlauf in Gangelt should be the first competition in 2017, in which some of my “ Lustläufer ” friends participated: Ralf, Jörg, Doris and me. With ambitious goals we drove in a good mood, highly motivated and well prepared to Gangelt. True to the motto “Completely no matter how fast we run - the main thing: be faster than 5!” We were just before 14 o'clock initially on the wrong side of the starting line. Once again it became clear that the first ones could quickly become the last, and we changed the side more or less coordinated. A bit late, the track started at 14:06. Surprisingly for at least Jörg, who already knew the track, there was this time a completely new route: It was started with the Bambini round which was followed by two laps over the 10km. The start, the Bambini round, was a bit bumpy, because route was very winding on the first 2km, unfortunately. The 10km were quite pleasant to run: A beautiful route o...

Laufen ist kein Teamsport. Aber in einer Gruppe macht er trotzdem mehr Spaß. Man kann sich gegenseitig motivieren, antreiben und ein mehr oder weniger fester Termin in der Woche, an dem man sich zum Laufen trifft, ist gut für die Kontinuität und das Durchhaltevermögen (in schwierigen Monaten). Laufen und Sport im Allgemeinen ist nicht immer einfach. Jeder kennt es: Man hat mal mehr, mal weniger Lust oder ist beruflich gestresst. Gerade bei schlechtem Wetter oder in den Wintermonaten ist der Schweinehund eine Bestie, die nur schwer alleine zu besiegen ist. Auf der anderen Seite ist, wie geschrieben, der Laufsport kein Teamsport. Jeder hat ein anderes Niveau. Der eine läuft etwas schneller, der andere etwas langsamer, dafür aber größere Distanzen. Einen oder gar mehrere Partner zu finden, die zueinander kompatibel sind, ist schwer oder gar unmöglich. Nicht zuletzt, weil das Leistungsniveau keine Konstante ist, sondern Höhen und vor allem auch Tiefen hat. Läufer, die sich st...

Laufen und Gutes tun? Warum nicht? Aber Gutes nicht nur für mich in Form von gesteigerter Fitness und Gesundheit. Es gibt leider viele Menschen, die nicht gehen oder gar laufen können. Menschen mit Handicap, die nicht nur, aber auch mit Geld unterstützt werden müssen. Aufmerksamkeit, Wertschätzung und Unterstützung sind wichtig. Das hat sich der Benefizlauf des Aachener Runer-Shop’s unterstützt vom Laufsportverein „ Lustlauf – Mein Vereine.V. “ auf die Fahne geschrieben. Wieder eine Gelegenheit mich selber zu fordern und sogar andere dabei zu unterstützen. Gute Sache dachte sich auch meine Frau und motivierte zwei weiter Freundinnen mitzulaufen. Aber als passionierte Couch-Potatos gleich eine 10km Strecke? Na ja, möglich, aber nicht ohne Training. Wie lang und intensiv das Training für den ersten 10km Lauf sein muss hängt natürlich vom persönlichen „Talent“ ab. 12 Wochen sollte man aber sicherlich einplanen. Als Alternative bietet der Benefizlauf aber auch kürzere St...