Archive | September, 2025

Another marathon

21 Sep

This one in Tokyo (the World Championships). Julia Mayer, who was the first Austrian woman to cross the finish line in the Vienna City Marathon in 2023 and 2024, came in 33rd. Might not sound like much to a Kenyan or Ethiopian, but Mayer said afterwards that she was absolutely satisfied and could not have done any better. It sounds like quite a dramatic race for her on a hot and muggy day. At the 20-kilometer mark, she was 46th (already better than her results in the World Championships in Budapest two years ago) and worked her way up slot by slot.

I’ll be very curious how she does in the VCM 2026, if she runs it.

Here the ORF story (in German; from September 14th — it’s taken me a while to find time to write): https://sport.orf.at/stories/3145551

Here is my report on the VCM 2023: https://ecbinvienna.com/2023/04/23/vienna-city-marathon-2023/

And on the VCM 2024: https://ecbinvienna.com/2024/04/21/vcm-2024-vienna-city-marathon/

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Some good news on the preservation front

21 Sep

A friend and I have been keeping an eye on this villa in Neuwaldegg. We’ve seen too many treasures over the years been allowed to decay to a point when they could legally be torn down. Invariably, they were replaced with faceless, cement structures that were, possibly, quite nice to live in but brought no joy to the folks out front.

This one sat on a construction site for about two years, and for a while it wasn’t clear which way the project was going to go. Then it started to look promising. This time when I walked by I was treated to the fully renovated version.

If the person who invested the time, money, and care into restoring this property ever reads this — thank you! Not only did you save a beautiful piece of Viennese history. You restored a tiny bit of my hope in people.

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