Today I ran for the last time … in 2008. So it’s time to wrap up my running year.
2008 began slowly. As I mentioned in this blog, I acquired an annoying injury of my left achilles tendon while I was running the Dublin Marathon in the fall of 2007. By January 2008 I had worked me up to 10 km runs, which I did three times a week. Not bad, if you consider that 4 weeks ago I couldn’t run at all.
But there was that goal that I had: the 2008 Hamburg Marathon in April, on the 27th to be exact. As every year I wanted to run that race, it’s my home race after all. So I had to start running again on a regular basis. It worked, my tendon was quiet, I could increase my mileage until race day, and I finished with a time of 4:01:18.
Spring and summer passed. After Hamburg I resumed my 3-to-4-times-a-week10-to-15-km-schedule without any problems, but also without any goals, and thus my speed declined. 
At one point in summer I decided to run the marathon in Kaltenkirchen, the little town 30 km north of Hamburg where I live. I wrote about that race in this blog, so I restrict myself to my race results: I entered the race, which took place in the 42nd week of the year, with bib No. 42. Coincidence? Wait … I was (and still am) 42 years old. Ok, enough of that number? Not yet: As you all know in that marathon race (as in every other) the runners had to cover 42 kilometers (that’s the 4th “42” on that day). But I have one more: One week later I got the list with the official race results in my mail box. You guessed it: I finished 42nd! Now you can think about coincidence ;-)
At one point in summer I decided to run the marathon in Kaltenkirchen, the little town 30 km north of Hamburg where I live. I wrote about that race in this blog, so I restrict myself to my race results: I entered the race, which took place in the 42nd week of the year, with bib No. 42. Coincidence? Wait … I was (and still am) 42 years old. Ok, enough of that number? Not yet: As you all know in that marathon race (as in every other) the runners had to cover 42 kilometers (that’s the 4th “42” on that day). But I have one more: One week later I got the list with the official race results in my mail box. You guessed it: I finished 42nd! Now you can think about coincidence ;-)By the way, my finish time was 4 hours and 13 minutes.
I became a bit lazy after that fall marathon. I ran only 3 times a week most of the weeks, due to the weather, crazy work schedules especially in December, and other reasons (I’m never short of fine excuses!).
In early 2008 I joined that BuckeyeOutdoors group whose members wanted to run 1,500 miles each. I made 1,248 miles or 2,007.6 kilometers. That took me more than
188 hours
OR
almost eight days
OR
2.14% of the available amount of time in 2008.
I also burned 163,000 calories and gained about 1 kilogram of weight. Despite that last sad fact I'll carry on in 2009. I can't help!
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