Altensteig in the Black Forest, with over 10,000 inhabitants and its historical past in the tannery and floating, was the organizer of biannual Altstadt stair run. Regarding the atmosphere this stair run was something completely different. It is very rare to pass a thunderous audience in a stair run. Here it happened twice. This made the competition an even more intense experience. The route led across country through the old town. The end of the run was in the Old Town Festival. A multitude of marshals assisted, which were also necessary for the myriad turns and intersections. At the first kilometer, a time of 2:55 minutes was measured in the front heat despite the upcoming 821 steps. I crossed the 4.2 km finish line in fifteenth place, nevertheless satisfied. Only 15 sec. faster and I would have ended up in 9th place. In the evening, one could enjoy and chill out with interesting conversations at the Old Town Festival.

After almost 3 months timeout, this week I started at a race for the first time again. And this at high-caliber races like the Towerrunning Championship. Within three days, three races in three different countries were on the agenda. The Danube Tower in Vienna, the AZ Tower in Brno and the UFO in Bratislava. One can say, that this was the best-manned towerrun of all time, with runners from all over Europe. It was a well organized event with many good contacts and experiences.

The Münster of Ulm is the town’s landmark. In 1377 the foundation stone for the building was laid. The 161.53 meters high tower was completed in 1890 and is still the highest church tower in the world. It survived the bombing of the city of Ulm at the end of the Second World War 1944/1945 largely undamaged. For the 4th time, the Ulm Münster tower run took place today, carried out by EinsteinMarathon.de. 560 steps had to be overcome. My colleagues of Towerrunning Germany Jan Fiebig, Franz and Xinxin Maier were at the start. The race entry fees went straight to the conservation of Ulm Münster.

Today I was on-site to present Towerrunning Germany for the first time to the Ulm runners and spectators. This tower run is part of this year’s towerrunning series in Germany.

The Skyrun in Frankfurt at the Messeturm, which is organized by Michael Lederer for the working group for paraplegics (Arque), went in its eighth round this year. This race certainly is a highlight in Towerrunning in Germany, if not in Europe. The event had a record number of participants and very good results were recorded from runners all over the world. This year we were lucky with the weather, we had no rain. There I often meet old friends and make new ones. Unfortunately, I couldn’t start that day, as my personal and professional obligations the weeks before had allowed only very little training. Nevertheless, we had our first Towerrunning Germany stand on the spot where we sold many t-shirts and increased our membership.

The race at the television tower in Tallinn in 2014 belongs to the Premium Races, which means for this race, there was a higher score in the World Cup standings. The 314-meter tall TV Tower, which we were allowed to climb, is Estonia’s tallest structure. It was a well-staffed race with runners from Poland, Italy, Spain, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Germany. I could barely squeeze in this event between my job-related activities. Today I crossed the finish line on position 11.

A top-organized race was held today in Warsaw with a lot of damn good runners from Europe. It took me 4:20 minutes today until I had climbed to the top floor of the Rondo 1 Tower. (Total height 192 meters)

Kudos to the organizers and big thanks for the rich, elaborate after-party in the evening among familiar faces.