What was I thinking, run till you Love it - Jakob Herrmann. EP-017

Born (1971) and grew up in Switzerland Moved to the US in 1998 to get my computer science degree (Santa Monica College) and planned to go back home afterwards Met my wife in the first semester, got married in 1999 and now have 4 daughters (7, 16, 21, 23) Worked for companies like Sony and Disney as a web developer Became self-employed in July 2016 working on my social media website which now has over 3 million members Started running in 2005 (did not do any sports whatsoever for 20 years) after gaining a lot of weight almost topping 200 pounds on the scale Ran my first full marathon 2 months after starting running Ran my first ultra (JFK50) the same year Ran my first 100-miler (Rio del Lago) the next year (2006) Now I've done 244 races including one 144 miler, 25 100-milers, 4 100Ks, 18 50-milers, 61 50Ks, and 84 full marathons. Started helping out ultra marathon races by designing/coding the race website for free (I've helped 11 ultra running events like SD100) I've been involved in AC100 for 10 years and am a 49% shareholder and will get the other 51% once the RD retires Had the idea to put on a race in Switzerland in 2015 but most people discouraged me claiming it's not sustainable Kept going and had the inaugural race in 2017 with 50 runners in the 80KM course (also offered a half marathon distance that year) Had 1,021 registrations from 53 countries this year Opened the 2025 registration October 1st (9 days ago) and already has 135 registrations from 19 countries It took 43 days in 2023 to reach 135 registrations, hence I believe we will sell out the event next year (max. 1,500 runners) Most memorable event was last year when Kevin Schmidt ran the 160K and his wife, Courtney Dauwalter, paced him the last 53 miles