2022, a new record for my legs...

In 2022 I ran 1'834km kilometers (lowest year since 2018)… But that still equals :

• 4'585 stadium loops 
• 43.6 marathons, in 52 weeks…
• 166.7 km/month if I don’t count December when I couldn’t run (152.8/month over 12 months)
• 151 runs
• 12.1km per run on average
• 173 hours and 17 minutes, which is 7.22 days, or 7 days and nights, 5 hours, and 18 minutes in sneakers
• Average speed 5'40/km – 10.6km/h, but it was not flat
• Positive elevation : only 15'000m (I only count when there is at least 100m of elevation)
• Longest run: 22.8km, with the bag when I was testing myself for a possible running-trip

And the rest of the time, I sat around. A lot. For 4'293km, seated on my mountain bike, with which I climbed Everest 8 times (+71'270m of elevation), notably during great backpack bike-trips… 100 mountain bike rides with an average of 43km and +712m per ride. I have to confess: I think I became a mountain biker… as if being addicted to running wasn’t already a problem enough…

That makes a total of 251 days outdoor (run or MTB), out of 365 days… 

When I could burn some calories: 321'834 calories burned by running or pedaling (approximately, and according to Garmin, a calculation I don’t trust at all but which is fun), which represents : 

• 644 chocolate bars (500cal/100g), or about 64.5 kg (2 bars/day), or 
• 804 liters of beer (40cal per dl), or 1'608 cans of lager (I promise I didn’t drink that much, well… I think), or 
• 3'065 bananas
• 379 pizzas, or 
• 402kg of pasta, or a little more than 2'000 plates of spaghetti tomato, without cheese (160cal per plate of 200g of cooked pasta) and thus 5.5 plates of pasta per day…

But this is equivalent to running from one place to another where there are urbirun courses, for example:

• From Lisbon to Bern
  
• From Rome to Copenhagen
  
• From Bordeaux to Krakow
  
• From Washington DC to Miami
  

And on my mountain bike it would be :

• From Cascais, near Lisbon Portugal, on the Atlantic coast, to Helsinki in Finland
  

Or in total, running and mountain biking, very nice road trips, like :

• From New-York to Los Angeles through Canada, north of the Great Lakes
  
• Or from one ocean to the other, diagonally, from Miami Beach, tires in the Atlantic, to Vancouver in Canada, on the Pacific coast
  

All these kilometers that started with a preparation for the Miami half-marathon in February, where I went, without success, to attempt a PB, but I finished very satisfied with a 1h38'58 under the heat, a 25th place in my age group and in the top 4.3%.

Then I started to look for drawing a new line on the map of Switzerland, and I prepared a “Rösti Run”: a run-trip (as in 2021) across Switzerland along the language border (called the “Rösti Barrier”). I defined a pretty nice track and started training with my little backpack… But after a dozen of training with the backpack and some D+, I realized that my hips didn’t seem to be in the mood at all… Which put me in a bad mood…

So I decided to go for a mountain bike trip (yes, as my backpack was ready…), and I started the JuraBike route, 375km from Basel on the German border, to Nyon, near Geneva. Well, I’ll tell you: it was wowowow awesome, beautiful… and hard… the first day, after 75km and +1'715m of forest roads and single trails, I was as drained as after a marathon, and I couldn’t imagine getting back on the bike all the next day. But then again, if you don’t move forward, it won’t move forward (a saying I learned while running). So I got back on the bike, and it went better… so I finished the trip in 5 days (75km and +1700m per day on average). And it was so cool, that I didn’t want to go back home by train, so I continued for 2 days, to arrive home after a 504km ride… An amazing experience. The micro-adventure is always in front of your door, if you think about it…

I ran in Tuscany, in the forests, on the cliffs, but also discovered charming little Italian towns like Piacenza or Pavia. I cycled in the hills, on white roads in the middle of olive groves and vineyards. 

I took my lover to ride in the Franches-Montagnes (Swiss Jura), my favorite part of the bike-trip, then discover the Berner Oberland.  

I went to attend a soccer game in Munich, for a birthday party with friends… which gave me a stupid great idea: train to Zürich, then hop on the bike to reach the Bavarian capital. 347km in 3 days through the Bavarian preAlps, their forests, their fields and their lakes. A wonderful experience, which allowed me then to run for 2 days in Münich to refine the urbirun Münich route. And seriously, it is very cool. Try it out…

About urbirun route, the TOP 5 2022 of the most used courses are the following:

• Florence
• Berlin
• Barcelona
• Copenhagen
• Edinburgh

You also enjoyed the more than 200 scenic running routes available in GPX files that you can simply download to your watch. I’m glad you enjoyed it.

As for me, I spent a great year, until November (a knee that has been bothering me for 6 weeks), running in the cold, the snow, in the rain, in the wind, in the sun, in the fog, at night, in the rising sun… across the plain, in the forest, in the mountains, on beaches, along rivers, on the shores of lakes, the sea and the ocean, in small villages, in big cities,. … there is always and everywhere a place and a time to run, do not forget it…

Like these last 15 years now, and more than 22'000km covered in my running shoes…

And for 2023?… 

Let my ideas wander to find goals, challenges, and small adventures, that will keep me motivated and keep me living wonderful experiences… For the moment, and considering my knee, I’m thinking more about biking : riding some bike-trips with my lover, in Switzerland and elsewhere… and maybe treating myself with a “tour of Switzerland” (it’s so beautiful) linking the capitals of our 26 cantons, from “mine” to Bern the swiss capital… and above all, taking all the opportunities to let myself be surprised…

But I know that I will also heal and run… run again, always, run… Because “running is not something we do, it is a part of what we are” (Michael d’Aulerio)

Happy New Year 2023 to all!