Wednesday, April 3, 2013

In the spotlight with Maazel from Germany

Meet Tough Guy "Maazel" from Germany!
Hello everybody out there
I am „Maazel“ - my real name is Marcel. I am 34 years old and work in a police department near Dortmund/Germany.
In 2008 my wife bet, that I would not finish a half marathon without doing any training before. Of course, I won the bet !
Since then, although I had some bad injuries ( ACL 2 times!! ), my training got more intense within the last years. I did a lot of mountain biking (long distance races), I tried some short triathlons and duathlons, went climbing and mountaineering during summer.
Now, 5 years later I am quite a Sports junkie.
2012 I took part in more than 14 events ( MTB & Marathon Events)
My 3 highlights of the last 12 months were:
The Milano City Marathon! I finished with a personal record of 3:17:59. My trip to Milano was covered by Running Magazine. I was big fun to run the city marathon in Milan. And I enjoy being am „cover-model“ for the magazine as well.
The Hawaiian Marathon! In a social-media-voting I was able to capture more than 2000 votes, which finally brought me as a member of the „Tiger Balm Team“ to sunny islands of Hawaii! What a great trip! Outstanding: I experienced a „runners high“ there for me first time in my life
Funny: I knew in advance that Yolanda also will be there for another record, so I friended her on facebook. Unfortunately we could not meet each other there. To many Japanese runners, to much chaos before and after the race. I finished at least under the Top 8 of all German participants.
Since then – thanks to facebook & twitter – I am still in contact with Yolanda.
 
ToughGuy Race
And finally the company „Brooks“ with Team GettingTough e.V. sent me - as a blogger - to this years toughguy race!
I finished Top 100.
My highlights for 2013:
I will be busy 2013 . I will take part in 8 different competitions, such as Urbanathlon Hamburg, City Marathon Berlin, my first Zugspitz-Utraltrain (more than 100 km around Germans highest Mountain so called „Zugspitze) & some Mud-Obstacle-Races…
But all the Marathons, Ultras, MTB Events, are nothing in comparison to the biggest challenge of my life:

I am going to be a father!!!!! Within the next weeks my wife will give birth to our first baby!!!!!
I am not trained for this new chapter in my life.
But remember: 5 years ago I finished my first half marathon without any training. It was the start of a new passion in my life. So it will be with our child
Thanks Yolanda for all the support you gave me,
 
Yours, Marcel – www.maazel.de