What a milestone! Karl-Wolfgang Baumgarten completed his 500th marathon on Madeira. He reveals how it came about and talks about some of his very special runs.
Weyhe – The event wasn’t as magical as the number. When Karl-Wolfgang Baumgarten crossed the finish line in Madeira at the end of January, he had not only completed his 500th (!) marathon – but also an extraordinarily exhausting weekend. “In the end, fortunately, everything went well,” says Baumgarten with a smile. But before he goes into more detail about this milestone run, the 70-year-old from SC Weyhe first gives an insight into the time of the almost insane 499 marathons before – and has a few nice anecdotes up his sleeve.
The whole story begins in an unorthodox way – because Baumgarten never actually planned to do the long haul. He comes from football, and then in 1997, just because of a damaged meniscus, he thought: “Okay, now you run a marathon. So I trained and went straight to the start for the first time. And then you just keep walking.”
Already 16 starts at the ultramarathon in Biel, Switzerland
As with many other athletes, Baumgarten was driven by the ambition to keep improving his times. In 2001, however, the last attempt to break the record time of 3:28 hours set in 1998 followed. “At some point it was no longer possible to beat the times,” he also reports on the disappointing 3:47 hours at the German Championships. So the then 49-year-old turned to new challenges: ultramarathons.
Baumgarten had “great respect” for the 74.3 kilometers (42.195 in a “normal” marathon). But the former railway employee managed it and made an almost fateful acquaintance on his return journey on the train. “I met someone who wanted to do a 100-kilometer run in Biel,” he says: “I didn’t understand how that’s supposed to work: two weeks after a 75-kilometer run like that, to run 100 kilometers straight away.” Then Baumgarten understood – and did it himself. The Swiss town has now become one of his favorite destinations, he has already started 16 times in Biel.
The next milestone followed in 2007, after Baumgarten had discovered the 100 marathon club a year earlier: “You become an active member when you can prove that you have completed 100 marathons. And that’s where I wanted to go.” In November the time had come, and Baumgarten ran more than ever before. He delivered the best number in 2013 with 43 marathons, but he was also on the road a lot in 2021 at 37 – despite the pandemic.
The 500: Madeira with a year delay
Baumgarten explains that membership in the 100-Marathon-Club made it possible: “There are many people who organize runs themselves. You can register online for many small, nationwide marathons and start running at different times to suit Corona.”
For number 500, which Baumgarten had aimed for with his high number last year, he naturally came up with “something special”: the Portuguese island in the Atlantic. “In January there are not so many possibilities,” says Baumgarten: “Then the choice fell on Madeira. I actually wanted to run there last year, but it was canceled.” Not this time. And the event actually turned out to be something extraordinary.
“I didn’t know if it might be canceled again,” says Baumgarten: “Then they came up with the idea that you had to be tested again before take-off – although I had already done that before the flight.” That led to a “stupid gut feeling” because: “You could have been infected on the plane. So there was an anxious wait for the result.”
As if something like that wasn’t enough for a restless sleep – “and you need a little sleep before a marathon” (Baumgarten) – the American football fan woke up at four o’clock. Because his Green Bay Packers played that night to get into the playoff semifinals. “I looked straight at the Packers app,” reveals Baumgarten, “and knew immediately what was going on.” Green Bay lost to the San Francisco 49ers in dramatic fashion.
But in the morning he tackled the 500 – and in 5:38 hours he managed to keep to the specified six and a half in order to be classified. “That would have been a disaster,” says Baumgarten with a laugh. It wasn’t – but it wasn’t a fairy tale either. He has no problems with that. Because for Karl-Wolfgang Baumgarten it’s all about one thing anyway: Keep running.
Hawaii, the Seychelles, twice underground – but the absolute highlight was number 50 in “Packers country” Green Bay
At 500 marathons, there were of course one or two special features for Karl-Wolfgang Baumgarten. The Seychelles, for example, which the SC Weyhe athlete spontaneously added to his collection when the corona pandemic hit and the giant run in Tokyo was canceled for all amateur athletes at the same time. Or Hawaii. “Hololulu is the most beautiful, the landscape is great,” says Baumgarten. He also mentions his two marathons underground in Thuringia in this context.
However, the 70-year-old gets really excited when he talks about his number 50 in Green Bay. Baumgarten found out about this run in Hawaii – in the jersey of Packers quarterback icon Brett Favre, when he met the US Munich Olympic champion Frank Shorter, among others. “I talked to a few people there for a long time, who said we could meet up again in Green Bay,” reports Baumgarten, who then laid down the special 50 there – and even got this starting number.
A local newspaper in the city of 100,000 in the northern US state of Wisconsin emailed him in advance – and the German was amazed to see himself “with a photo on the Friday before the weekend run” in the “Green Bay Press-Gazette”. : “I was compared to Packers players with the number 50 in the first sentence of the article and was well known around town.”
Since May is not part of the classic American football season, Baumgarten was happy to be able to get a few autographs from the stars around pass recipient Donald Driver at a mini-camp of his favorite team – before he then told his Hawaii acquaintance, whom he met again was able to say “that I like to have a beer the night before a run so that I can sleep better”.
During the marathon – which even runs through the legendary Packers stadium Lambeau Field shortly before the end – he was “spoken to so often”, says Baumgarten, who was “received by the press” at the finish: “On Monday I was still there times in the newspaper.”
Baumgarten “always took his starts in Green Bay (also the 111th run – of course with start number 111 – took place there) as an occasion for longer trips to the USA” – which provided enough material to write articles for the Weyher club newspaper. For example about his 50th run – a somewhat unreal experience and absolute highlight in Baumgarten’s long career.
