2020... review

In 2020, I ran 2’884 kilometers / 1’792 miles (a record) … which is :

• 7’210 stadium laps
• 68 (and a third) marathons
• 240.3 km / month
• 213 runs
• 13.5km average per run
• 272 hours, which makes 11.3 days, or 11 days and nights, 8 hours, and 2 minutes with running shoes on
• Average speed 5’39 / km – 10.6km but it was not flat…
• Elevation gain 49’087m (161’046 ft), (i count only if there is more that 150m elevation in the run), that is 5.5 times to the top of Everest, or 151 times to the top of Eiffel Tower…
• Longest run : 35.1km from Thun to Bern (as a test for 2021 swiss.crossing silly project)
• Highest elevation on a run : 1'797m, on a trail run along Hardergrat’s Ridge overlooling Interlaken
• 206’927 calories burned (approximately, and according to Garmin, a calculation that I do not trust at all but which I think is funny), which represents: 413 chocolate bars (500cal / 100g), or approximately 41.3 kg, or 517 liters of beer (40cal per dl), or 1,034 half liter cans of blonde beer (promise, Mom, I drank a few less than that… I think), or 258kg of pasta, this is 1’290 plates of tomato spaghetti, without cheese (80 / 100g), i.e. 160 per 200g plate of pasta…

This is equivalent to running for example roughly running:

From my home in Yaroslavl, Russia (about 250km further north-east of Moscow …)

Further than from Paris to Moscow, or Istanbul

From Chicago to Miami, via Washington DC, or from Chicago to Las Vegas (for those who prefer to run towards the setting sun…

From Lisbon to Budapest, from Seville to Copenhagen, or from Rome to Helsinki…

From Brownsville, in the far south of Texas, to Winnipeg,Canada…

It is also the Tour de France via Brussels and Geneva, the Tour of the Iberian Peninsula via Bilbao, Barcelona, ​​Valencia, Seville, Lisbon and Porto, running all around Switzerland and Austria (away from their borders) through Lyon, Strasbourg, Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Ljubljana, Verona, Milan and back to Lyon… or it is almost 3 tours of Switzerland’s borders…

If I add to that running kms, the biking, mountainbiking and hiking, I moved for about 4'600km with my legs…

To make it short, that’s a lot… for someone who, like everyone else, could not travel, and so, has run this distance around his home …

I dedicate each of these kilometers to the nursing staff trapped in the worst and most exhausting year of their life, who have held up and are still holding the hardest of marathons…

And so as not to have run for nothing, I will change each of these km into francs that I will offer to some local charities, which this year have not been able to organize the events that bring them to life, and which help them to give smile to hospitalized kids, for example… Thank you to them …

Because I, despite everything, had the chance to run, and sometimes not even at home… In February, I was lucky enough to return to sunny Miami, run along the ocean, enjoy the sunrise…

I also ran in Ticino, Zermatt, Tuscany, the Bernese Oberland, Bern, Solothurn, Fribourg, Sion, and on the shores of Lake Geneva… but of course most around home…

And during the first lockdown, I mostly ran starting from my own door, and suddenly, I accumulated elevation runs, and got lots of endurance. I enjoyed running longer runs, trail running, slopes, and I explored almost all the trails in the surrounding mountains, to their tops…

I ran magnificent trails, solo, but above all 3 great trail runs with Popov, where we took advantage of some of the most beautiful panoramas in the country : the Tour du Grammont, the Hardergrat Ridge above Interlaken and Lake Brienz, the Tour of the Argentina Peaks, all under a radiant sun, with breathtaking views…

And this year was also brought good news for urbirun :

New partnership with the MAPS.ME app, and the development of new routes.

And other thing : of all our routes, as well as many exclusive ones, are now available as .GPX files that you can install directly on your sportwatch or on your smartphone, then let yourself be guided, and enjoy the best routes and the best viewpoints to discover the essentials of a city or region, quite simply… See and get all our .GPX routes here, or here…

And, due to the languor of being locked up, well, you try to escape, to find how to travel, and explore… and the stupid idea came up to my mind : as we will probably won’t travel a lot in 2021, I decided to cross Switzerland, running, from Lake Constance to Lake Geneva (approx. 370km)… in semi-autonomy, in stages…

So to train, and to test the concept, I ran almost the entire north shore of Lake Geneva in 2 consecutive days (65km), and also from Interlaken to Bern, also in 2 consecutive days (also 65km), with a 5.5kg bag on my back… Two experiences, let’s say enriching, about the repetition of long runs, on the portage… Which convinced me in the idea, but also in its great difficulty… The project trots in my head, the stages are ready, all I still need to do is to bring it to life, to dare taking the 1st step.

2020 was a special year… when running has never been so vital and liberating …

And now … I don’t know if I’m looking forward to another (14th) year of running …

I don’t know, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to travel, and finally put some other roads under my sneakers and other scenery in front of my eyes…

I don’t know, because I don’t know if my project is not a little too big for me, if my old carcass (50 years now, yes, yes …) will be strong enough … if my mind will be…

I don’t know if I will still have the courage to train, to find the best way to train for that kind of challenge… and to take the first step one day … all over there, on the shores of Lake Constance, to run back here…

But whatever happens, in 2021, we will have to run, run to hold on…, to keep up, to escape… to feel alive…

And like every year, I will run in the cold, in the snow, in the rain, in the wind, in the sun, in the mist, in the night, in the rising sun …

I will run through the plains, in the forest, in the mountains, on beaches (I hope, let’s cross fingers), along rivers, by lakes, sea and ocean (let’s cross finger), in small villages, in big cities (let’s cross fingers) …

I’ll run. Period.

Happy New Year 2021 everyone !!