With the Olympics here and the Men’s Marathon on August 12 only 8 days away, we interviewed marathoner Günther Weidlinger, who has been training in St. Moritz, Switzerland before arriving in London to run the Olympic marathon.

Günther Weidlinger

Here are some highlights of our interview with Günther:

Günther, how are you feeling now that Olympics are here and your race is in 8 days?

Thanks for asking, I am feeling great at the moment. The training is going quite well, and I am excited about every session and of course the race.

Why did you choose to train in St.Moritz, what is so special about this location?

St. Moritz has the perfect conditions for endurance athletes. The plateau is perfect for long endurance runs and the surroundings make every training an amazing experience. Running tracks, paved streets and gravel roads in combination with the mountains and a swimming pool with sauna… what else does an athlete need!?   

How many training sessions have you been doing a week?

I have been training about 12 times per week; that is around 800 km. In the morning I do mostly longer or faster trainings; then in the afternoon I do easier runs.   

What is the moment when a person can say that they are in good condition?

You recognize it during the training. When the legs are fine during the hardest training sessions and the heart rate is moving in the correct way, then I know that I am going to reach my goals in London. Of course there are good and bad days. Good days don’t go unnoticed, bad days will be quickly forgotten.

Günther, thanks a lot for your time and all the best for your big race!  We look forward to following you during the marathon and watching you achieve your best marathon time yet!

 runtastics, Günther will be running LIVE with runtastic thanks to the LIVE tracking function, stay tuned to our Facebook fan page and cheer him on! He will be excited to receive all your encouragement!

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There’s less than a month remaining before the Summer Olympics – 21 days to be exact – and runtastic is getting into the Olympic spirit! The games will run from July 27 – August 12 in London, and for the first time ever, all 32 sports will be streamed live on both NBCOlympics.com and the BBC Sport website.

Here are the highlights we’re looking forward to most:

• runtastic founder and CEO Florian Gschwandtner has been selected to run in the Olympic torch relay! The relay began in May when David Beckham lit the flame in Cornwall and ran the first leg, and has been going since. The torch will travel 7,500 miles over the course of 70 days before the flame is lit at the opening ceremony. The 8,000 torchbearers were nominated by people they know, and chosen by the Olympic sponsors and organizers, for their contributions to their community. Florian will run July 22 through the London Borough of  Redbridge. Check back in a few weeks for a blog post from Florian describing his once-in-a-lifetime experience carrying the torch.

• Avid runtastic user Günther Weidlinger will represent Austria in the men’s marathon. He’ll face some very tough competition, including world-record holder Patrick Makau of Kenya; Geoffrey Mutai, also from Kenya, who won both the Boston and New York marathons in 2011; and American Meb Keflezighi who won the silver medal in 2004. Read about Günther’s training regimen here and be sure to cheer him on Sunday, August 12!

• Given our love of running and biking, the triathlon is of course one of our favorite events. In the women’s race, 55 fierce competitors will strive for gold by swimming 1500 meters, biking 40 kilometers and running 10,000 meters. Emma Snowsill of Australia is the woman to beat – she finished more than a minute ahead of the field at the 2008 Beijing Olympics – but we think the US ladies are up to the challenge. 2011 ITU Athlete of the Year Sarah Groff is a serious contender, having finished third in the 2011 ITU World Championship Series, but we’re most excited to watch Laura Bennett, who’s back for more after her fourth-place finish in Beijing. At 37 years old, Bennett is more than holding her own against the younger competition. We admire her and can’t wait to watch her August 4.

• Can anyone beat Jamaican world-record holder and three-time Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt in the 100 meter dash? Two seemingly unlikely Olympians will try –- both are among the fastest men in US track and field history, but neither was expected to make the team. Justin Gatlin won Olympic gold in 2004, but in 2006 he was banned from competition for four years for steroid use. Tyson Gay won the 100 meters at the worlds in 2007, setting an American record of 9.69 seconds, but is still recovering from a hip surgery last summer. Now both have beaten the odds. Gatlin claimed first in the US Olympic trials with 9.80 seconds, and Gay took second, just 0.06 seconds behind. Will their comebacks continue in London? And how will they stack up against their international competition? Take less than 10 seconds of your day to watch the Men’s 100 meter dash on August 4 (preliminaries) and August 5 (finals).

What events are you most excited to watch? Let us know in the comments or send a tweet to our new US Twitter handle @runtasticUS or our international handle @runtastic.

In February, we introduced you to marathoner Günther Weidlinger, who qualified for the Olympic Games 2012. Since then, he’s been updating us on his training. With the Olympics right around the corner, we asked the avid runtastic user to fill us in:

This spring I had to cancel races due to various injuries, but for the last several weeks I have been ramping up my training and working on increasing my pace. I’m very excited about the upcoming Olympiad in London and the thought of running past TowerBridge, Buckingham Palace and crossing the finish line at Olympic Stadium is pushing me on.

Since my injury-related setbacks, I have steadily been increasing my weekly running mileage to around 170 km (over 100 miles) while upping my general strength training, and have seen great improvements in stability and mobilization. A couple weekends ago I was finally able to pin on a race bib number and run in an organized race for the first time in a while. I ran the Puckinger Seelauf race, conveniently located near my home town, Weißkirchen, where I do most of my training.

Before the race, I thought I was just going to need to run a good tempo and not push myself too hard to win. But then I heard from a fellow racer that Elisha Sawe Kiprotich, a Kenyan runner, was also at the starting line. Elisha and I have known each other for a long time and I know that he is a very strong and powerful runner. After only one kilometer it was clear who would win the race, and it was not me! I finished the 10K with a very respectable of 30:41, only 24 seconds behind Elisha. I was extremely satisfied with my performance considering this was my first competitive race after my injury.

Thanks to Elisha’s speed, my kilometer pace ended up being 3:04 (under a 5-minute mile) instead of my goal of 3:10, which was an encouraging sign for London.

For the next few weeks I’ll continue my training inAustria, and when July rolls around, I’ll move my training to the high altitude camp in St. Moritz. There I plan on increasing my strength, endurance and pace and be fully prepared for London.

Best regards,

Günther

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During the last two weeks in Spain I did great training runs of about 400 kilometers under perfect conditions. Thank you very much to all of my fans, who watched my Live Tracking sessions on the runtastic fitness site.

For all of you, who observed my training range, just an indication: The average pace includes running activities to come in, sprints, running downs as well as breaks.

The time off, when I was not running I used to do some sportmanagement studies, which I find very interesting.

The necessary preperations for the spring season are according to my personal training plan. It’s already my 15th start as a professional runner into the new season. I‘ m looking forward to the Olympic Games in London on August 12.

Best regards

Günther

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The first five days in my Olympia training camp in Spain have been satisfying: I was able to run under perfect conditions with sunny 15-20 degrees and already made more than 150 kilometers. My physical condition is great but there are still some very challenging training sessions (basic endurance and also race endurance training programs) to come. The products of my sponsor Forever accommodate me with all the things I need starting with Argi+ coming to sun blocker and ending with my tooth paste.

Our hotel, the Barrosa Palace in Novo Sancti Petri, Chiclana, offers perfect circumstances to concentrate on the important things with its great lodging, large rooms and wonderful surrounding area with perfect running routes. I fully concentrate on the right training, right alimentation (even tough this is very hard because they got a huge dessert buffet) and sleeping. If there are free afternoons at times I do trips to near villages where I am also allowed to drink a cup of coffee as a little reward for my hard training.

The runtastic PRO app is the perfect tool to accurately record my training runs and get detailed analysis right in the app on my phone. Furthermore my fans can follow my runs live on www.runtastic.com and send me cheers which motivate me a lot. My training runs are daily at 10:00 a.m and 5 p.m.! Here you can have a look at my account on the runtastic fitness site and follow me live doing training runs for the Olympic Games 2012 in London.

I will keep you up-to-date in my next report – runtastic regards from Spain

Günther

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