Book Update: Runhundred
This is the title of my Western States 100 book
You know this already: I am currently writing a book about my life-changing experience at the Western States Endurance Run, the legendary 100-mile foot race through the Sierra Nevada mountains. If you are not familiar with my personal initiation and aftermath of this endeavor, here’s a few selected deep dive stories, that I recommend:
If you want to know every single detail of my 7-month preparation for this once-in-a-lifetime event, simply browse my archive. I meticulously documented all the struggle, doubt, thrill, and backlash of getting the chance to race the Western States 100.
She goes by the name…
Back to the book. Today, I want to share the first highly classified detail with you. It is the title of my book. It’s going to be called….
RUNHUNDRED
I originally came up with this neologism for a documentary film by my friend Stephan Wieser about my other friend Sascha Kowalski, who ran his first 100 km race at the WHEW100 in 2016.
I decided to recapture this wonderful title for my first book, simply because I find it so graceful and to the point. The documentary movie never won an Oscar and Sascha has run many more 100 km races ever since, so I guess this is fine.
Do you like the title?
I have a list of about 20 to 25 subtitle options, that I might share with you at another time. Spoiler: There’s some quite hilarious ones.
Back to the book project
The first 200 pages of Runhundred were written in the blink of an eye, and I thought the book was finished.
Well, I was wrong. Awfully wrong. Through an honest feedback by someone who knows what they are talking about, I learned that there is a lot more depth and backstory that I could and should add to evolve from good to great. Maybe even to amazing. So I started again. From scratch.
It was, both, painful and motivating to basically start it all over. That’s why I did it even a third time since then. I later found out, that this Sisyphean nightmare is an integral part of writing a book. The professionals call it “drafts” and they can easily count up to double-digit. Thanks to AJ Harper I know that this is normal, even purposive.
As you can see, I am new to the game of professional writing, and I’ve got a lot to learn. But at least I’m excited. Yes I am.
So, here we are
Third draft. Roughly 250 pages. A foreword, an introduction, an epilogue, even acknowledgements and a glossary. Basically, a complete book. And still, it feels ways away.
That’s it for the update on the Runhundred book. More soon. If there is anything particular you want me to write about, please drop me a message.
Everything not running
In this section, I will briefly pick up one non-running topic every week. I know this is disturbing, but together we will get through this.
For my birthday in February, I got a photo negative scanner from my wonderful wife, Lisa. It feels weird to explain what this is, but chances are high, that some of you are not familiar with analog photography (anymore).
So, in ancient times, before the age of digital and smartphone photography, you took analog photos with your camera and then had your film developed in a photo lab. What you got in return were prints (the actual photos) and negatives (you needed those, if you wanted to develop more prints).
Long story short, between 1993 and 1999 I took thousands of analog photos but lost or gave away most of the prints, while I kept the negatives like a treasure, planning to digitalize them some day. That “some day” started on my Birthday.
It was a peculiar sensation, when the first photos materialized on the little preview screen of the negative scanner. I felt old. Very old. But I also got a warm and blissful feeling in my stomach. Like I was regaining a lost part of my past.
Most of the analog photos I took between 1993 and 1999 were music related. I had just started playing in bands and publishing my first music fanzine, called Keep the Faith, which also marked the beginning of my writing career.
To let you participate, here’s a photo of me and my second band, xEmpirex playing a show in - I think - Saarbrücken in 1998.
You might soon find more of these pics on 90s Hardcore Archive, a wonderful Instagram profile collecting and publishing lost and found photos from the hardcore-punk scene of the 1990s. For no obvious reason, I am happy, that these contemporary documents will persist.
So… Talk to you next week, I guess!
One more thing
I am absolutely stoked that almost 350 people signed up for my Das Z Letter within the first 3 days. I promise to deliver the best and most thrilling content every week. The following ultra-short poll will help me to do so:
I would buy it ✌🏻