what’s the story behind thezurichrunner
ABOUT
Hi there! I am very excited about the launch of this website, ZurichRunner.com! If we haven’t connected on social media yet, please check out the various platforms where I post about my latest runs and hikes, and discuss my best tips and tricks for living and thriving in Switzerland HERE.
Although we are expats in this country, Switzerland has become our new home. And like all expats before us, moving and settling in Switzerland came with all the challenges, administrative hurdles, opportunities, new experiences and, of course, all the chocolate, cheese and mountains you’d expect from such an adventure! Managing our relocation, finding a place to live, moving our household across borders, dealing with banks, insurance companies, authorities, etc., all on our own, I became quite knowledgeable about the subject. Over time, I was able to help a few people from around the world make their own journeys a little smoother and benefit from our experiences. Naturally, these experiences became a topic of conversation not only with colleagues, friends and other expats. As it is a topic that is near and dear to me, it certainly deserves a place on my blog.
So why did you decide to make this site? And what about the running and hiking?
Well, let me take you back. Waaay back. As a child I did not take part in any sports competitively. However, I learnt to swim at a fairly young age, a year or two before primary school. And around the same time, my grandfather taught me how to ride a bicycle. That and walking or hiking with my grandfather were my regular “sporting activities”, if you want to call them that. I never thought of it as such – for me it was just an awful lot of fun! It was also during this time that we regularly went to Switzerland for our holidays and my undying love for the mountains and Switzerland was born.
The “gym years”
Jump ahead to high school, where I was always a skinny guy, about 65kg/140lbs. Fast and wiry, but struggling to put on weight. Since eating more didn’t help (oh boy, what a luxury!), I decided to join the local gym and try to gain weight by putting on some muscle mass. I trained and trained, saw the famous “newbie gains”, picked up more complex exercises, tried to come up with my own training plans, watched all the old school bodybuilding documentaries… In short, I was hooked and for the next 15 years, through high school, becoming a banker, going to university and eventually becoming a lawyer, going to the gym was basically the only sport I did. I even started working at a couple of local gyms while I was at university, which helped pay the bills. I also got to train for free. Yay!
During this time I gave up most endurance sports as I didn’t have much time after university, working and then training 4-5 times a week after my shift. So no running, apart from the odd Sunday 10k, which I only did when I felt I had put on a bit too much weight in the winter, and a lot less cycling.
How did you become thezurichRUNNER then?
It was 2017 and I had just moved to Switzerland. I had left my family, friends and home behind. It would be a few months before my wife could join me, so I was on my own with nothing to do. At the same time, everything felt like a new beginning, inspiring, motivating and I was full of energy. I had not yet found a gym I wanted to join, so one late Wednesday night I thought, “I have to do something! Anything! Let’s go for a run!” And so I did. 10k, my go-to distance, whenever and wherever I wanted to run. I set up a Strava account to try out the app, walked out the door of my temporary flat and started running. This would be my first activity on Strava, my first run in Switzerland and my first run as “thezurichrunner”. Something clicked during this run. It was cold, rainy and pitch black as I picked a trail through the woods and up the “Uetliberg”, Zurich’s highest… well, hill. I could barely see the path in front of me. And yet… I really enjoyed this crazy and spontaneous run in the dark.
So I took up running as a new hobby, something that was accessible and easy to do after a busy day at the office. I was not a regular runner, on and off for a few weeks at a time. And I had no ambitions to enter a race or run a particular distance, apart from my standard 10k runs. I still enjoyed them every time.
So when a new company I was working with invited me to join their team and run the local company run with them, I was not too hesitant. That was in 2021, and it was the first “running event” I ever took part in. I was not particularly fast. In fact, I was easily one of the slowest runners in the team. But taking in the atmosphere of the event, feeling the tension of the runners at the start line, the excitement, the sudden surge of adrenaline as the race began, and the pure joy and relief as I crossed the finish line… something clicked that day. I became curious. Intrigued by the positive experience of that first race against time – against myself. After that, the thought of registering for an “official” race crept into my mind again and again.
From “almost couch” to Mountain Trail Ultrarunner
The following year, after another company run, it was time. I had been looking at different races and all I knew was that I wanted to run a trail and I wanted to run in the Alps. From there it wasn’t long before I stumbled upon the UTMB Eiger Ultra Trail, and being a bit of a megalomaniac with way too much confidence in my own abilities (and since a regular marathon is just a walk in the park, right? Right?!), I thought it would be a great idea to do a mountain ultra race as my first official race.
So I saw myself becoming an ultra marathoner before I had even run much more than 20km at once in my life, let alone a marathon. On race day, after waking up in the early hours of the morning in Grindelwald, Switzerland, getting ready, making my way to the start line and watching the first wave of runners take off, the second wave would be mine. I was so excited! And the race was off to a fantastic start. You can read a full race report here where I go into detail about the highlights, the struggles, the highs and the downright awful parts of that first race. But after crossing the line in what felt like an awfully slow 12:02:46, I felt great! Great about myself, great about running my first race, great about setting my mind to something and following through no matter how hard it was. This race was not about time, it was about proving a point.
After that there was no going back. Two months later I ran the 30th edition of the famous Jungfrau Marathon and just a week after that I was invited by Dacia Switzerland to race the UTMB Wildstrubel “Wild 25” with Team Dacia, another breathtakingly beautiful mountain trail race in the Swiss Alps. What a year! And I would never have dreamed that all of this would have been possible!
A few years have passed since that first run in Zurich on a dark and rainy Wednesday night and I have come a long way, facing all kinds of struggles in a new country, in a new sport and in a whole new life that we have built for ourselves.
I thought it would be great to document my journey, all the ups and downs, what I have learned, what I am still learning, how I am progressing and why and how all this has given and continues to give me so much positivity in my life. As I continue to set my own goals to achieve, I would like to invite you to join me in setting your own goals! They can be as small as running from lamppost to lamppost to qualifying for the UTMB World Series Finals. It doesn’t matter, it’s all up to YOU to set them. And it’s all up to YOU to achieve them.