Werner Sonntag, the German running author and journalist who resisted the tyranny of the stopwatch, has been honored posthumously with a curated collection of his finest writings titled “Werner Sonntag 100.” Published by the Arete Verlag, the volume brings together one hundred of his best columns, thoughts, and fragments from his online journal LaufReport.de, where he maintained a public diary for over a decade and a half starting in 2002.
The title serves a dual purpose. It marks what would have been the 100th birthday of Sonntag, who was born in Görlitz in June 1926 and died near Stuttgart in October 2021. At the same time, the number honors the ultra-long-distance running format to which Sonntag dedicated his work, most notably his book “Irgendwann mußt du nach Biel. Bekenntnisse eines Hundert-Kilometer-Läufers” (Someday You Must Go to Biel: Confessions of a 100-Kilometer Runner).
A Philosophy of Endurance and Life Mastery
Sonntag began running at age 39 on medical advice to treat migraines. The regimen proved successful enough that he was able to stop taking his medication, relying instead on a beer to manage the onset of an attack. By age forty, he completed his first two marathons: one in the Netherlands organized by the Association of Older Long-Distance Runners (IGL) for participants aged 40 and older, and another in the Black Forest, which marked the region’s first open public race.
Sportwissenschaftler Oliver Stoll notes in his foreword to the new collection that Sonntag possessed a rare gift for encouraging others without grand rhetoric. “He reminded us that endurance is not just a physical ability, but an attitude toward life,” Stoll writes. Sonntag viewed running as a strategy for coping with existence, emphasizing continuous movement over strict adherence to pace or the necessity of club memberships.
Illustrating this ethos, Sonntag’s Wikipedia entry features a photo of him running down an empty street with a race bib pinned to his chest, flanked only by an ambulance serving as the sweep vehicle. He finished at the back of the pack more often than at the front. When he won his age group at the inaugural European Veterans 100-Kilometer Championships in 1993 at age 60, he remarked dryly that the field had been “weakly contested.” Yet his influence on everyday runners in German-speaking regions outpaced that of many elite champions.
Democratizing the Sport Against Commercialization
Long before city marathons became major events tied to urban marketing and commercial running apparel, Sonntag established the Lauftreff Stuttgart-Degerloch in 1974. The initiative opened endurance sports to the public at a time when running was largely restricted to the fast, strong, and talented. In 1979, he further fueled the shift from solitary running to mass participation with his book “Spaß am Laufen. Jogging für die Gesundheit” (Fun While Running: Jogging for Health).
Even while serving as editor-in-chief of the long-distance running magazines “Spiridon” and “Condition,” Sonntag rejected the traditional role of a sports journalist. He opposed Germany’s Olympic bids and argued against an uncritical obsession with achievement. “The commitment to performance becomes questionable,” he wrote, “when there is no longer any reflection on the meaning of performance. Psychologically speaking, performance leads to mental and spiritual impoverishment when it completely fills our thinking and feeling.”
Despite his skepticism toward mindless competition, Sonntag completed well over 300 marathons and ultra-distances, frequently running one race every single week.
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