Tor on Marathon

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.

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.