Tor Rønnow

6 Star Finisher 7 Continents Finisher 75 Marathon countries Author of best-seller running book Mountain hiker Off-piste alpine skier Chess player

Summertime in Hamburg and Rotterdam

Yet another wellness weekend and even taking an early peek at the Summer 2009… at least when you consider the weather in Hamburg this Saturday… 19-20 degrees and just wonderful conditions at the Ôjendorfer See ‘Alpaka’ marathon. You find the pictures here.

Rotterdam marathon 2009
Just after the race Saturday, Mogens and I endured a five hours drive to Rotterdam, Netherlands, and were lucky just to reach the gorgeous pasta party in the Euromast Tower. What an ingenious location for a runners meal ! Anyways… Sundays race in Rotterdam went well… and we could thus book another marathon doulet to the collection.

Rotterdam marathon 2009 was a great event, look for yourself here.

GARMIN Rudersdal VII

I somehow managed to complete GARMIN Rudersdal VII just after a week of near-dying of a flu. I guess I felt compelled to make the try, being the Race Director of the Event and welcomming almost 100 runners from the entire country. The short story is… I made it… and the participants had a great day on the tough route, the permanent marathonroute ‘RudersdalRuten’ just north of Copenhagen.

You find the story and the pictures here.

Poetry on Fire

I have to confess, I am not the guy reading too much Poetry these days. I did when I was younger, lots of different things and of course the unavoidable stuff like the Danish Poet Michael Strunge and the French Arthur Rimbaud. Well… who hasn’t ?

Anyways… one of my favorite poems is actually by a very unknowm Norwegian, Arnulf Øverland, whose poem “Til en Misantrop” I discovered in a very remote hut when hiking the Norwegian Mountains… my primary occupation when I was a kid and in early manhood… actually, the simiar kind of quest as running marathons. Long hard days in Nature, beautiful eyesights, lots of struggle…

I often think of this Poem, “Til en Misantrop“. My snobby and hilariously self-righteous neighbours remind me. The News on the Television reminds me. The loved ones that I have buried remind me. My own history reminds me. The Poem itself reminds me.

Third Marathon Doublet in 2009

This past weekend was another ‘wellness’ thing with two marathons in a row. Yum-yum.

First, on Saturday, we were a rather large group of Danes visiting Kiel marathon in the Northern Germany and we were lucky to have ideal running conditions with no wind and almost warm winter temperatures. The race was rather easily run, even though the route became a bit boring after a while. However, as always in Germany the organisation was suberb and we enjoyed a fine and professional day at the habour in Kiel.

Pictures from the race can be seen here.

Then Sunday and back in Denmark, we ran a small Halloween-kinda run near the little town Horsens in Jutland and many we dressed up for the occasion… just for fun… but do not mistake: the race was extremely tough to get through.. not because we had run the day before… no, to the very muddy and slippery conditions on the also partly hilly route. Thus, it really demanded some serious will-power to endure… and I was personally quite happy to actually finish in a fine manner closing the last 12 k in sub 75 minutes.

On the picture you see some of the strong runners, including my doublet-collegues this weekend Mogens Pedersen (cow) and Michael Hein (outmost left). You find the full story here and below a small vid with a happy but also rather tired Tor passing by.