István Kocza – Rubik’s Cube Champion writes about the Rubiks Run

…unfortunately in hungarian:

http://www.hunrun.com/london-marathon-rubik-kockaval

István Kocza has an amazing brain. He is one of the top ten fastest people in the world who solves a 5x5x5 Cube blindfolded (the normal cube has 3x3x3 sides). That is truely unbelievable.
He also holds various other records e.g the world record to solve a standard rubik’s cube with fewest moves (22).

But that is not all – he is a runner as well and really fun:

Kocza István has run a marathon dressed as a Rubik's cube 🙂

Thanks a lot István, for writing the article!
For all german readers – here is a translation:
http://rubiksrun.com/?page_id=498

My first Rubik’s Cube Competition in Aachen

Hello guys,
That was an exciting weekend! We just came back this morning from the Rubik’s Cube competition Aachen Open 2011 in Germany.
My official times:
Single Solve 31.80 Sec
Average of 5 is 34.61 Sec
Click here for a few more stats.
Click here for Simon’s stats.
Here is an amazingly boring video of me:

Simon and I felt like 14 year olds.
Firstly because we were hysterically focused on these little colorful cubic toys trying to solve them as quickly as possible on the plane, on the train, in the night and before breakfast – high-fiving each other when getting close to our records.
Secondly because the age average of the contestants was really around 14 years.

Here are a few images (with a few of the older contestants):

Aachen Open Collage

Erik Akkersdijk, Stefan Pochmann, Lars Vandenbergh, István Kocza, Uli Kilian, Simon Howells


A big compliment to the organisers of the Aachen Open. Although it was the second biggest cube event in the world everything went smoothly and totally on schedule. Everyone was happy, relaxed and very friendly.
Big thanks to the students and members of RWTH Aachen!

SnowCubing – my cousins answer

Max had a super idea: supporting me by solving the Rubiks Cube while snowboarding!
With gloves… how does that even work???

I love it!
If anyone can think of more crazy stuff involving the cube – make a video and post the link here!!!

And another improvement

After cubing with my cousin Max and with Pat, Simon and a few others on New Year’s Eve in Munich I was able to improve my times by another second 🙂
Have a look at the stats page: http://rubiksrun.com/?p=88

New Rubik’s Cube Personal Best

I just improved my average Rubik’s Cube times (10 out of 12) more than 3 Seconds: from 38 to 35 Seconds – I’m quite pleased 🙂
Have a look at the updated stats.
Speedcubers will yawn right now where as runners might be impressed.

And I ran a half marathon yesterday – now runners yawn… and speedcubers are probably… yawn again…

Oh dear – too late for wannabe-funny-posts.
Good night.

I signed up for my first Rubik’s competition!

Yes!
Near my home town “Köln” (Germany) there is the nice town of Aachen.
And there it is, where the Aachen Open will take place from 14th to 16th of January 2011.

I’m going to start in these events:
– Rubik’s Cube (normal 3x3x3)
– Rubik’s Cube One Handed (OH)
– 2x2x2 Cube

Apparently it is the biggest German Cube competition – I’m quite excited!!!

Virgin London Marathon Committee not very supportive

I was quite disappointed when I called the London Marathon Committee last Friday. I admit that Friday afternoon might not be the best time to get motivated people on the phone – but a bit of support would have been nice.
Two attempts, two different people, not a single answer.
I was asking simple questions like

  • Where might be a good place along the race where supporters could hand me over a bunch of scrambled cubes and receive my solved ones?
  • Which part of the track is very crowded so we can avoid these spots for handing over the cubes?

“We don’t have such information”… no motivation in maybe trying to find a solution.
Then I had a little look online and found an interactive marathon map on their official website – quite handy. And there is a button “crowd density” which looks very promising! Unfortunately it is not enabled yet – but I’ll keep an eye on that.

Anyway – pity the London Marathon Committee was not very keen on helping.
If anyone knows anything about this topic – please let me know!
Thanks!

Feliks Zemdegs’ New Rubik’s Cube World Record!

He is the first who solved the Rubik’s Cube in less than 7 Seconds in an official Rubik’s competition.
Watch this – unbelievable:

Why Running AND Cubing the same time?

Many people ask me the question: Why Running AND Cubing the same time?

Well, here in the UK a lot of people run for charity – and that is great! But in order to really catch people’s attention one has to come up with new or interesting or crazy things these days.
I simply want to reach as many people as possible, make them aware of prostate (and other) cancer and raise as much money as I can for Prostate UK.
Besides that, I love challenges and I always want to do new things and find new ways of doing things more efficiently – that is probably the “germaness” in me…
And I always wanted to be a Guinness World Record holder 😛

Minimum amount of cubes required for official Guinness World Record

After weeks of trying to get in touch with Guinness World Records they finally replied:

“Your attempt would actually be the first at this record and, as such, there is no previous record to beat. However, our research team concluded that 50 would be the required minimum acceptable for any first attempt. Thus, the solving of 50 cubes would be a new world record.”

That is good news because I want to solve 100 cubes anyway.

Good News in Prostate Cancer Research

Sounds like there is good progress in research about prostate cancer: Simple urine test to identify men at risk of getting prostate cancer.
Have a look at the BBC News website

(Old Video) The Rubik’s Run explained in 2 Minutes