Challenge Completed: Marathon Races in All 16 Federal States of Germany

I’ve always liked to play. There’s this saying “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” — if that’s true I’m definitely a young person albeit having been here for 41 years. Making running more fun by introducing games into it has been a guaranteed bringer of joy to me in these past 17 years I’ve been a runner. There have been several different games, such as collecting all streets in my city, going on a run streak, and I consider the tough long races outside of my comfort zone a type of game as well. To me, these are basically quests to solve. How can I make sure not to fail? What factors are under my control? How do I best adapt? It’s fun to try and find solutions to the inevitable problems that arise during multi-hour mountain races. My engineer brain gets activated. Another way in which I’ve added fun to my running has been to collect sets of races. One of my earliest and also longest quests has been to run all capital city marathon races of…