Going underground

People come up with the creasiest places tot run (a marathon). In Germany they ran a marathon last week in a former saltmine. The Kristallmarathon in Merkers:

• 500 meters underground;
• 13 laps;
• 750m climbing;
• 500 participants;
• Helmet and headlight mandatory;

The winner finished in 2:45. The mine is used for other activities such as mountain biking (or should I say underneath mountain biking) and various concerts.

Below some video's to give you an impression of the event.

26 loops to complete a marathon

In West Lafayette, Indiana, over 100 runners participated in the Circular Logic Marathon. 26 laps of 1 mile each! Actualy a good idea to be able to organize a small scale marathon without al the hassle to create a 26 mile course. And as the organizer states: "It is nice for the supporters because they can set up themselves and watch 'their runner' 26 times".

Dozens take part in unusual marathon: wlfi.com

Running a marathon indoor

If you want to avoid the cold try running a marathon indoor. Why they have chosen to run around an icerink? I don't know. Maybe to lower the contrast between indoor and outdoor?
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Running with 1.000.000 runners worldwide??

August 31st 2008 should be the first time ever that 1.000.000 runners take part in the same event. Take part in the 10k run in one of the 25 host cities or simply use your Nike+ and upload your run at the end of the day!


Labeled 'The Human Race' this will have to be a record run in the number of participants. It will require an app. 40.000 runners per host city unless the mayority will be made up by individual runners. According to the statistics on Nike+ over 50.000 run were logged in the last 24 hours. This adds one additional virtual city to the list of 25. And maybe for the event these numbers can be boosted.

If you do not own Nike+ gear but like to take part in Europe: European Cities were you can run are: Istanbul, London, Madrid, Munich, Paris, Rome and Warszaw. I wonder if they are going to make up the numbers and reach the 1.000.000 mark. Keep it in mind when picking your holiday destination;-)

Special events: VUmc run

In my mailbox I received an e-mail with the notification for a very nice event. The 'VUmc gebouwenloop', best translated as the Free University Medical Center indoorrun. A run taking you trough the buildings of the hospital of the university, over stairs, trough hallways and corridors. For kids there is a run of 1,2 km but as an adult you can choose: either 5 or 10k! A nice fartlek training.
One euro of the six euro subscription fee is for the Alzheimer research centre of the university. A very good cause.
For more information and images I refer tot the site of the VUmc which is, of course in Dutch but you can translate it using babelfish (see underneath) or other translators

Translate this the VU mc site

Dutch to English Dutch to French

Thanks to Babelfish

Fundraising event with a twist

My attention was drawn to a very special run organized by ZOA-Vluchtelingenzorg (ZOA-refrugycare)(with CBF a kind of warranty for charity organisations). They organise a walk aand run (15k) on Saturday the 29th of March 2008 called Walk4Water. Please promote!

The walkers and runners should get themselve sponsored to raise money for a drinkingwater proejct in Uganda. The walkers and runners carry a jerrycan with them to experience what it is like to have to wlka for water. Imagine running 15k with a jerrycan filled with water! But then again, this makes it more interesting to sponsor the runners for this good cause. More information (in Dutch) onhttp://www.walk4water.nl/.

The scenery for this event is the dike between Lelystad and Enkhuizen.

Egmond

Every year in the beginning of january there is the 'Halve van Egmond'. A half marathon which takes the runners along the flood line over the beach for some 10k and then back thourgh the dunes. Heavy, often cold, but o so nice to see. This year I had planned to take part but I first wanted to see the outcome of the 15k in Nijmegen (de Zevenheuvelenloop). As this was succesfull, with a new pb, it was time to register...only to find out it is no longer possible to enter the half marathon. Now I have to see if I particpate in the quarter marathon instead.

Rotterdam Marathon

It has been a bit quiet in this part of the blogsphere. Busy at work and all the spare time left is spend on running. The last training boost for this autumns marathon in Amsterdam. I just wanted to let you out there know that the preperation can start for next spring season. Rotterdam Marathon has opened his website for subscription for the 28th edition of on the worlds fastest marathons....

Weekend of extremes: from 100 meters worldrecord to a 100k ultra run

Last weekend was a weekend of extremes in running term. Asafa Powell improved his world record on the shortest outdoor distance, the 100 meter. He set the new time to beat on 9.74 seconds. A lead physiologist for the English Institute of Sport says "There is no sign that the 100m world record is slowing up" on BBC sport. He also expects that Powell will be able to lower the record to 9.7 in due time thanks to his explosive start.

On the other end of the scale was the 100k run in Winschoten with the Dutch Championchips, the European Championchips and the WMA Championchips. This was won by the Russian runner Oleg Kharitonov in a time of 6 hours, 30 minutes and 22 seconds. Check out the site for more results.


And on the scale from profesionalism to well....lets say enthousiasm...
I took part as a member of the relay team from my work on the 10 times 10km relay. We had two teams taking part. Before we tried to balance the teams so we could have a compitition between the to teams which worked out very well. In the end we finished just over two minutes apart. Picture shows me at the start of my 10k as last runner of one of the teams. Great thing of being the last runner of the team in a relay? Every other last runner you are overtaking (to be recognized by the 0 as the last digit of the number) means you are climbing one extra place in the final results. I am clad to say I overtook a a couple of runners without being overtaken myself!

Headphones prohibited

On the site of Grandma's Marathon on of the first texts your read is this one:

Headphone Rule:

USATF rules (Click here and read rule #144.3b) prohibit the use of headphones and similar devices on the racecourse. This rule will be enforced during Grandma's Marathon,
the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon, the William A. Irvin 5K, Fitger's 5K, the
Park Point 5-Miler and the Grandma's Minnesota Mile. Runners should not bring
these devices with them to the race. Those carrying/wearing these devices will
be given the option to surrender their music device to a designated race
official prior to entering the starting line gates. Surrendered devices will be
properly packaged and mailed back to their rightful owners within two weeks
after the race. Participants that choose not to surrender their device will be
disqualified from the race and their finishing time will not appear in the
official race results.

I don't think this is the best way to advertise your run! OK they start of with this line:

Grandma's Marathon is a point-to-point course run along the beautiful north
shore of Lake Superior. The 26.2-mile stretch begins on scenic Old Highway
61, just outside Two Harbors, Minnesota and finishes in Duluth's Canal Park.
Enthusiastic volunteers, spectators and live entertainers line the streets
to cheer runners on as they stride to the finish line.

That sounds more like it. If you make it a rule that headphones are
prohibited point it out in the regulations for the participants. Of course you can argue if it is necessary to prohibit use. Supposedly runners with headphones don't hear officials or other runners and the rule: "Keep your volume low so you can hear your surroundings" is hard to check. By the way: Be honest....would you still pay attention to some official shouting along the route after you hvae run 30k or more? They really have to be in my face to be noticed...

I myself seldom run with music, certainly not during a marathon where I want as little ballast as necessary. When running in nature I like to experience the sounds as well as for in the city...I need the sounds to make sure I am running save. For example a cyclist ready to overtake me cannot be heard while running with music. Even if the volume is turned very, very low. But that is a matter of taste and I can understand that people get a boost from running with music and that this might help them to finish a marathon so why prohibit the use of headphones?

Review: Trailshoes

On the blog Run to Dream (in Dutch so for help with translating see my blog in Dutch) a short review on three trailschoes. Special schoes fit for the more rough off the road work (so less suitabel for the use on the road). The lady in question is will take part in the Trans Alpine Run. A run of 8 days and 240km across four of the Alpine countries.
Now about the shoes, the: Inov8 Flyroc 310, the Inov8 Terroc 330 and the Adidas Supernova Trail. The writer used all three (not on the same time;-p) and an opinion on the demping they provide which makes them suitabel for various terrain conditions. The Terroc is hard and there for very stable but is not comfortabel if you have to run on asphalt where the supernova has some demping causing no problems on asphalt. The flyroc is somewhere in between and suitable for soft off road terrain

To me this all sounds like very specialist stuff that is less usefull for the everyday recreational runner.

Sevenhills running event: over 11.000 entries already!

This weekend I will determine how this autumn will look like in terms of running events. My autumn season always ends with the Zevenheuvelenloop (or Sevenhillsrun) in November. A feew weeks ago I received an e-mail and flyer from the organisation and yesterday I regsitered myself on the website!
Lets do some marketing: I am very enthousiastic about this event! Very well organized, traintickets for a reduced price, good facillities, a very well controlled start reducing the numbers of runners on the track, good atmosphere and although often a bit cold, usually the weather is OK. The large number of participants might be an illustration of the quality of this event: Over 20.000 and according to my starting number they are alreadyo ver 11.000 entrants for this years event. Way to go! Click here for the route on mapmyrun

In order to testify that I am not paid to write such a positive review some observations on the usability of the website because it is not designed with usability in mind. The clikcing starts after entering the url in yourbrowser:

1. a well designed landingpage welcome you where you have to choose between the run and the walking event (see image below),
2. you enter a indexpage where againa you have to choose between running and walking and hidden in the text the link to the entryform,
3. however you do not come to the entry form, you end up on a page with a lot of information and al the way to the bottom you find a button to enter 'klik hier als je wilt inschrijven',
4. a pop-up screen opens which is to small because the real relevant button to start the registraiotn porcess is hidden below so you have to scroll to find it. Besides it look completely different form the previous buttons. You have just entered step 1 of 11 to register,
5. in step 2 of 11 again you have to choose betweend the run and the walkingevent. So I had to choose three times that i wantend to register myself and two times I had to choose between running and walking. From my proffesional point of view wheer I advise on usability and customer experience a place some question marks at this approach. So here they are: ??????

images related to point 1, 2 and 5:

Gebrselassie still capable of fast run on track

Although Gebrselassie has swithed his focus from the track to the marathon he is still capable of running a fast race on the track as he showed last weekend during a tournament in Hengelo in the Netherlands. He ran the 10k during the FBK-games under the 27 minutes in 26:52.81.
Check out this remark on runnersweb.com:

".....his official age is 34 but many observers believe he is at least a few
years older..."

Maybe there is still hope for me being 34.....

Roparun: Rasing money for cancer

Last weekend was the weekend of the Roparun. An estafette run with eigth runners per team from Paris to Rotterdam. Over 400 kilometer, with eight runners is one and a half marathon for each runner! Last year the event raisen over 3.000.000 euro's. The results for this year will be presented on June the 15th.

This year saw 209 teams participating, a record. Lets hope that tihs will help the set a record for the amount of money raised!