In Gladiator, Marcus Aurelius lists the four chief virtues: Wisdom, justice, fortitude and temperance.
If you fight like Maximus, you will be the Saviour of Rome… and only then free.
Free !
The loved ones await in the Afterlife. But not yet.
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.
This past weekend was a long adventure of great running expericences, suberb marathon organizations and smooth travel/airline infrastructures… and three days in almost too good to be true weather in both Frankfurt (Germany) and Dublin (Ireland). Can you ask for more ? Not really !
Sunday, Frankfurt was on… what a great race and what an extraordinary finish in the ‘Festhalle’. You can see my many pictures from the route here.
Then Dublin monday… oh yes, I catched the evening plane Sunday to the city of Irisk delight… and in GREAT weather too ! The parts of the course in Phoenix Park are just beau-ti- ful… and what a joy to complete yet another double, my sixth this year and no. nine in toto.
You find the Dublin story here.
So at last I tried Budapest marathon… a race I have been ‘looking at’ for several years now.
Well… I was not disappointed… on the contrary I would say… running alongside Donau was a very scenic experience and fully made up for the somewhat medium-tough route due to all the turns and many small elevations at the bridges. The day was sunny and I thus got many nice shots in the camera !
You can see them here !
What we old New Age disciples have known for decades is now becoming scaringly apparent to the World as a whole: we all live in and ‘under’ common mass-belief systems.
Take the Sub-Prime Crisis and the current Financial situation in the world… and compare it with say 2005. What is the real difference ? Our attitudes and beliefs ! Today, the things, our houses and the Companies we treasured so highly only recently are said to be of less or no value ? Capitalism is dead … and authorities are shifting … ! Based on… what ?
Well… isn’t is quite obvious which extreme powers our imagination holds… especially our mass belief systems ! We can learn a lot from this, actually. We can learn to work with our personal belief systems… and that there is a direct link between what we think and believe in.. and which experiences we actually collect. The general rule is: you will experience exactly what you think you will ! So… be careful to choose the right belief systems ! You choose … and remember: there are NO absolute Truths !
This is what the Sub-Prime Crisis is teaching us… some of you have known this all along… but I think most people have been living for too long in the persuit of material values hailing to a bunch of fat middle-aged men called ‘Investors’ and sacrificing their judgement and love to the game of Carrers, Money and hierarchical Power. We now see that these men have no real power and that we can not rely on them or the belief systems they indoctrinate us with ! We have to rely on ourselves ! We have to choose real, personal values and beliefs. Carefully !
Me ? I do not personally believe in the Sub-Prime Crisis as a bad thing… but we may all fall short to certain consequences of this mass belief system… well… let happen what may ! Life does continue… also without us anno 2008. Wars may come.
Those are the hard facts. I believe.