Clearing the Deck after the Marathon
Das X Letter (X stands for XL)
One week since the release of “Runhundred” and it still feels pretty much like a total rollercoaster ride, and it wholly consumes my thoughts. Meanwhile, I am back from Valencia. It was a horrible trip back with cancelled flights, overnight drives in rental cars and gas station food, but we finally made it. As a farewell gift, I got a runny nose and massive sleep debt, but the family reunion with our lovely two cats, Harry & Toto, was well worth the stress.
Being back from Valencia also means being back on my desk. I spent 2 full days clearing the deck of the “Runhundred” book pre-order issues that had piled up since last Friday. I can proudly say that I am now back on top of things. I believe.
Book Pre-Orders for Pros
I totally underestimated the whole “Runhundred” pre-order project. First, there’s been way more orders than expected. Which is great, of course. But with an average packing time of about 5 minutes per order (signing the book, pick & pack, labelling) and new orders coming in every hour, it felt more and more like a Sisyphus job. Not to speak of carrying dozens of packages to the post office every day.
Second, I constantly kept on running out of packaging material and, well, books. Some backorders took ages because of the postal services’ Black Friday / Cyber Monday struggle. Most often, when I had freed some time to work on the book pre-orders, something was missing.
Third, it was very difficult to keep an overview because countless people ordered the book or book bundle with other items from the Willpower Onlinestore, which were shipped from a different warehouse. That left me with hundreds of “half-fulfilled” orders that needed special attention in their processing.
Fourth, although the book pre-orders remained my top priority, I had to balance them with other life and work projects that needed to be done before my trip to Valencia.
Running ragged on my last day before the flight, I was very confident that all orders had been shipped. Too bad, I was wrong about that. While I simply missed shipping a handful or orders completely, I also had some packages return to my place due to errors in recipients’ addresses or unwillingness of the Deutsche Post to deliver them as planned.
During my stay in Valencia, my hands were obviously tied, and I could do nothing but keep in touch with the people who haven’t received their books yet. I offered free ebook downloads as a compensation, but it still felt like I didn’t keep my promise. I hated it.
Well, it’s Saturday now, and I am very confident, that even the very last book order has made it to the mailbox. I already said this, but thanks to everyone for their patience and understanding. I promise that my next book pre-order will be better organized and scheduled. Now I know how it works.
After the marathon is before the marathon
I am still super happy with how my 2023 fall marathon turned out. And I mean the whole project. Starting from injury comeback over slowly but steadily ramping up both, training volume and quality, to smartly making use of my hard-earned fitness on race day. This entire training cycle (and A-race) represented good parts of why I love running.
I have to admit, though, that it was more to my Levelhead’s taste than to the Punk’s inside of me. In “Runhundred” I explain in detail these two facets of my personality, but in short:
The Punk – One side of me loves the unexpected, the chaos and exploring new things. Try, fail, try again, fail once more, learn and evolve.
The Levelhead – The other side of me lives in the safe-zone of well-tested and trusted actions and patterns which, more often than not, deliver a predictable outcome.
I am absolutely not judging when I say that this marathon training cycle was dominated by the Levelhead. After all, I am both, the Punk and the Levelhead. Playing it safe is neither a sign of cowardice nor of a standstill. I learned a lot about my running and I will put it into practice in my next marathon preparation. Which is going to start… now.
It’s winter, it’s cold, the trails are covered in snow, and I want more of what felt so good over the past few weeks. With that being said, after a few days (weeks?) of rest, I’m going to embark on another marathon training cycle for a yet-to-be-decided spring marathon. I have absolutely zero “never again!”-feelings, which are rather common among runners after a road marathon. Quite the contrary. I can’t wait to pound the asphalt again.
Everything not running
Despite a busy day at the office and a semi-cold, I went to a show last night. Slime was playing. If you are not familiar with Slime, it’s a German punk band… wait, let me correct that, it’s THE German punk band. Founded in 1979, no other band had a bigger musical and political impact on that genre. Reactivating and reinventing themselves many times, Slime are now experiencing their fourth spring with a new singer and a surprisingly great new album.
Slime is for Punk a bit like what Earth Crisis is for Hardcore. Some of their early, but also most influential lyrics were, without any doubt, over the top. Sometimes even questionable. However, neither Punk nor Hardcore emerged to have a well-reflected dialogue over social and political issues, considering all aspects of a complex matter to find the least irritating answers and solutions for all parties concerned. Punk and Hardcore were meant to be a punch is the face of a sleep-walking, ignorant and selfish society that has no other interest but getting even more rich and powerful at the expense of the less privileged part of humanity and planet earth.
With that being said, both Earth Crisis and Slime were not only important during their prime. Their strong messages remain relevant, even necessary, today.
But back to last night. Unfortunately, both originally announced support bands, Toxoplasma and Hass, had cancelled their appearance. Originating from roughly the same musical epoch as Slime, the two bands would have made my childhood time travel perfect. Slime, however, didn’t need much support to make a great show. A superb selection of well-performed songs and a stirring “we still love what we do”-vibe made the spark jump over to the motley audience, ranging from teenagers to folks in their 60s (including some band members). The live show gained particular momentum, when Slime’s new singer Tex Brasket took over the acoustic guitar and performed some of the songs he had written and contributed to the vast Slime legacy himself. His live presence is much less aggressive and inciting as his predecessor’s, Dirk Jora, but at the same time very authentic, very captivating and mature.
Slime will forever have a place in my heart, both musically and lyrically. I am thankful for all the bands who inspired and guided me as a teenager and young man. Yet, the impact of a small handful of bands has been more prominently than others, and Slime belongs to this circle.