Donald Bierer

I ran my first marathon in 1991 at the Napa Valley Marathon when I was a post-doctoral student at UC Berkeley. I made many rookie mistakes during that first marathon: my longest run up to that point had been about 15 miles, and I went out and tried to run my 10K pace and hold it for as long as I could. Needless to say, I crashed badly at 35K and ended up injured. Although I had no intention of ever running another marathon again, I later realized my errors and ran my second marathon a year later in Portland, OR. After noticing that my first three marathons were in three different states by chance, I decided to set running the states as a goal, not knowing that there was actually a club of runners doing that. But in 2007 we had to move to Germany. I therefore decided to postpone my goal of finishing the states and I began to run countries and Summer Olympic sites in Europe, starting with Helsinki, followed by Amsterdam, Antwerp, Prague, Reykjavik, and Berlin in the first year. When I realized that I had already qualified for Marathon Maniacs, I joined in 2011 and have since achieved iridium status. I have been a member of Marathon Globetrotters since the beginning, signing up when the club was launched. In addition, I also belong to the 50 States + DC Club and the Country Club. My short-term running goals were to get to 50 countries, finish the Summer Olympic sites in Europe, and after completing my 100th marathon, join the 100 Marathon Deutschland Club. Two of these three goals are now completed.  I completed my 100th marathon and 50th country at the Vatican City Marathon in 2023, and recently joined the 100 Marathon Deutschland Club. Now I want to go back and finish the US states. Marathoning has become my lifetime hobby. Professionally I work as a research chemist at Bayer AG in the Pharmaceutical Division in Wuppertal, Germany. I am married and have one son living in the US. When I was not running, I enjoyed taking care of our Bichon Frise. Unfortunately, Ju Ju passed away in 2022.