German Road Races e.V. (GRR) – and a look ahead at 2013 by Horst Milde

After a successful year for the event organisers, the participants at the GRR annual member meeting in early December in Bräunlingen/ Schwarzwald expressed a positive balance for the year 2012.

The year was just as successful for the German Road Races organisation; with 61 events/organisers, GRR has continued to develop, with the newest member being the "Berlin Company Run". This race will be presented here soon.

GRR is still accepting new members; to be accepted, the "Health Questionnaire" must be a basic condition required by the organisers for participation in their race.

In the year celebrating "50 Years of the People's Run in Germany" (the 1^st People's Run (Volkslauf) took place on October 13, 1963 in Bobingen), running remains just as popular as ever, although with a slight shift in interest, with more runners participating in half marathons than marathons, an increase in company races and trail running, and more athletes participating in ultra events.

GRR is proud of its members, like the "RWE Essen Marathon Around the Baldeneysee", which is also 50 years old, and the 45-year-old "Schwarzwald Marathon".  Both races are part of the successful running movement in Germany.

The GRR website is a valued source of information, which is unparalleled as a portal for running enthusiasts with its news on German athletics and running. There is a special section for news from the neighbouring countries on Switzerland and Austria, with a long-standing partnership with Swiss Runners.

There is also a focus of reports from our eastern neighbour, Poland, while there is still room for improvement (and a goal for the future) for the interaction between the two countries The Prague Marathon should also be mentioned, which is a member of German Road Races, as are the "Antalya Marathon"/TUR, the "Mallorca Marathon"/ESP,  the "Salzburg Marathon"/AUS, the "Dreiländer Marathon"/AUS and the "Südtiroler Spring Marathon" /ITA.

With over 33,000 current articles and well over 48,000 photos from all aspects of national and international athletics, it is much more than just a report of results. The articles on topics such as sports medicine, training, sports literature, senior sports, doping, sports policies, and sport history are topics high in demand.

With its bilingual reporting in German and English, the GRR website is unique in the world of running and athletics in Germany, and is regarded as the most important running portal in Germany. More and more, for runners from abroad German Road Races is becoming the first place to stop when seeking information and advice. It thus serves both as a source of information and as an ambassador for Germany to inform the world about Germany, athletics and running, as well as about cultural and historical events.

German Road Races was founded in 1995 as an association of running event organisers and as an independent voice of the German running scene – independent of the national athletics association. Through its initiatives, GRR has created for itself a solid spot in the German running community. This future oriented association awards an annual prize for the "Young Talent of the Year", the "Trainer of the Year", and the "Merited Organiser".

A new initiative has been created, the "GRR Nachwuchs Cup 2013", which is intended to promote young German talents

The year 2013 – like every year – will make new demands on the event organisers to satisfy the needs of the runners, skaters, and walkers, which is naturally also the goal of all of the GRR event organisers in Germany and abroad. 

The most important thing is to make it to the finish safely. To a healthy running year 2013!

Horst Milde*

German Road Races e.V.

Chairman


* Initiator of the founding of German Road Races, co-founder of AIMS (Association of International Marathons and Distances Races – 1982) and founder of the AIMS Marathon Museum of Running (1994) in Berlin. From 1964 – 2004 (from the 1^st Berlin Cross-Country Run on November 8, 1964 at Teufelsberg in the Grunewald Forest with the Free University of Berlin), over the course of 40 years, he helped get exactly 1,268,649 people in 348 events running. He developed the Berlin Marathon into an international event and brought it into the World Marathon Majors (WMM) – the super league of the worldwide marathons, and he initiated moving the start and finish of the marathon to Germany's most famous landmark, the Brandenburg Gate, at the IAAF World Championships in 2009.  He set the founding stone for the AIMS award "Marathon of the Decade" through his activities and ideas. The Berlin Half Marathon, the AVON Women's Run, the Team Relay, and many more events are part of his collection of innovations from his success career as an event organiser.