On Indian tracks

Do you know the book "A walk in the woods" by Bill Bryson? After passing by it at the Delaware Water Gap two times in the last year I couldn't leave it there again this time.

So I used the chance and convinced my colleague to run a small part of the 2600 mile long Appalachian trail after arriving in New Jersey on Monday afternoon.



We went up a most of the way up to Mount Nimsi from Delaware Water Gap, having wonderfull views on the Delaware River from time to time.



We will stay until Friday doing workshops on a production site in Belvidere, an hour and a half west of New York City. It's quite rural here and our hotel is in a very small town called Hope, founded by German pilgrims.

See typical Belvidere below...



...and the crossing over the Delaware.

Summer garden parties

Last weekend was a party weekend. We had our annual summer party of the company with lots of sport, relaxing and fun and perfect weather on Friday.



And we had a nice "bbq in the rain" garden party on Sunday. :)

Happy 2nd birthday, Lea!!

We love you!



Leave a message on her website if you like.

Kassel Marathon

My 21st marathon, but an important one. After last year with very few training, a bad marathon in over 4 hours and an unfinished ironman I started a regular training in January and had some very first signs of better performance at the Strongman and the Lichtenwald half marathon. So my goal was to finish a marathon in under 3:30 h for the first time since the end of 2005. And I did it. 3 hours and 27 minutes and I saw the finish line under this extremely hot and sunny conditions. It's a nice track with nice people cheering during the race. The photo below has been shot by Astrid just minutes before the start.

Berchtesgaden Alps

We are on a week long holiday to the Alps near Berchtesgarden. We went hiking, but its very rainy and cold and the snow still covers most of the higher trails.





But independent of the weather I love the mountains and especially running in the mountains. Below you can see a face shot of myself right after climbing one of my running hills.



On one of the last days we went to Salzburg to the zoo and met our new favorite animals, the cute Alpakas (see here).

Our garden becomes a jungle...

Here some impressions of the jungle in our backyard.











By the way, tomorrow our one week holiday starts. We'll go to Berchtesgarden in the Alps for some hiking and stop over in Ingolstadt for a big party with old university collegues. Enjoy the summer!

Home in Mecklenburg & Run to the sky!

A weekend at home in Mecklenburg, a seldom experience these days. It was nice to see the family again and have a nice bbq in the garden.



On the way back to Mannheim I stopped over in Berlin and met my cousin at the Alexander place for participation in the second big stair run in Germany (after the one I ran in Frankfurt last year). The race went up the 39 floors to the Park Inn Hotel, quite exhausting. I succeeded as 26th overall from 500 participants and was 2nd in my age group.



Below you can see my cousin in his sandals on the 20th something floor.

Garden party

As we didn't organize a party after moving into the new flat at the end of last year, we did so last Saturday and invited some friends to a garden party. 4 free days and sunny weather made it a nice event.

Thanks for all who came and for the new garden bench.

Lichtenwald half marathon

Only 7 days after the successful mud run I went to a small village in the Swabian Alb to take part in a mountain half marathon organized by a friend. It's one of my favorite runs where I have been the last three years already.

Besides meeting friends of my marathon circle I was really fast and became 19th overall and second in my age group. The continuous training since January finally pays off.

Strongman, Weeze

The long and hard training in the woods around Mannheim ;) finally did pay off. I went with friends to Weeze, a former army base in Northern Germany near the Dutch border, to take part in the mud race. And I became 295th from over 5000 participants.



See some videos and articles about the race on the official site.