First of all, as i start writing this i actually have no idea how long this is gonna be. 2019 Has actually been a wild year as speedrunning became a very time consuming thing and in many ways influenced my life. Alright let's get this started: 

I started speedrunning Pokemon Red in the end of 2018, more out of curiosity than actually with the ambition to become really good at it. Three months prior a long relationship ended and i was desperately looking for something to get lost in. My only experience with PSR was watching Gunners stream from time to time, basically having no clue what was happening and just watching for entertainment. Funnily enough at the time the only person i knew was AlanPikachu, someone i basically just came across because of our names and he was genuinely pretty nice to me. 

My first ever run was actually a couple months prior to that on another emulator. I actually found a screenshot from back then (https://imgur.com/a/rx8Y17x). My first ever run i legit timed iirc was a 2:07 and my first submitted run was a 2:02, a time in hindsight actually doesnt seem to bad for only a couple days of practice (https://i.imgur.com/XVyBSWS.png). 
I actually got hooked pretty fast and wanted to improve at all cost with just the goal of getting sub 2h. Thats when the first people from the PSR community actually came along. I still remember DerTeppich coming into my stream one day and giving me a shitton of advice, without me knowing him and how insanely good he actually was. Soon enough i met a lot more people and was pleasantly suprised how supportive all these people were in helping someone who just got started. 

The grind intensified, reaching goal after goal, learning more and more and some day actually got invited by Teppich to join their daily Red races. I still remember how nervous i was in my first race: I only remember Teppich and Flutz being in it.
I knew Teppich was gonna destroy me and Flutz i knew from a showcase he did some months prior, so immediately i had tons of respect for all these guys. Racing Red actually became my favourite hobby these days, playing an insane amount of them and ending up with around 35 Red Races within 40 days. More and more people joined the races and i got to meet people like Araya, Que, Headbob and so on. 

I'll probably adress people later on so i won't talk about anyone specifically quite yet. It was around that time when my favourite race moment of 2019 accured, something that summed up racing insanely well for me (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ygGszHMryA&t=104s).
At the start of June we actually started talks about organizing a big Red tournament and since i was really invested at the time i immediately said i would help organizing. In hindsight, that was one of the best calls of the entire year. 

After not really doing anything for a couple weeks, we finally agreed to start preparing, mainly Teppich, Legend, Araya and myself. I still remember the day sign-ups started, sitting around and nervously refreshing the participants page. Right of the bat i was shocked about the amount of people who signed up and the names involved. It was a fantastic mix of newcomers, PSR veterans and racers. 

I could probably write an entire essay about the tournament alone but i'm trying to  keep this short: The tournament actually exceeded my expectations by a lot. Organizing was tons of fun and it seemed well received overall. Highlights were definitely the draws we did on my stream, which people hopefully enjoyed, and casting plenty of races on Speedgaming. 

Going into the tournament i didnt think casting was gonna be more fun than actually racing, but from the first race on i casted together with Araya, i immediatelly noticed how much i loved it. After 2 months the tourney ended and found a a deserving winner in WaveWarrior. 
Everyone seemed to be tired of Red afterwards, but thankfully the next adventure was right around the corner in form of Sword/Shield. 
Finally having some prior knowledge to the entire speedrunning gig and being around for a release of a main series game, i quickly got hooked on these games thanks to the amazing works of the routers, namely Wartab, Sinstar and Wsop. I really hope i can go back to the grind sooner than later. 

Noteworthy people in the PSR community i have to talk about: 

- Araya became one of the best friends i made in PSR really quickly. Wether it was racing him (still to this day haven't beaten him 
  in a single race), doing the draws or casting with him, i always had a blast. This guy is as great of a runner as he is as a person.
- Wsop was easily the person i learned most from. Wether it was Red, Gold or even SwSh, he will always be willing to help people 
  improve and never seems to get tired of the most silliest questions. I really appreciate this kind of mindset and hope i can help 
  people improve as much this guy helped me. Funnily enough, WaveWarrior seems to become an equally skilled runner and a person who's 
  on the same page in regards of spreading knowledge, something i think Wsop is partly responsible for.
- Fran (Franny) was someone i actually couldn't put a finger on wether i liked him or not for quite some time. Turns out we seem to 
  have a bunch of common interests and a similar passion for Red and soon i liked this guy so much that i wished he was streaming more.
- The entire Racing community: Whether its Teppich, Flutz, Barp, Headbob, Wh0m, Vivec, Legend, Weed, Hammer and so on (i'm incredibly 
  sorry, i'm just naming the people i can think of from the top of my head), i spent so much time with these guys over the course of 
  the year. I really appreciate every single one of you and can't really put into words how much i love the racing community, even tho 
  it got really quite these days. 
- Que is someone i felt strangely connected to very early into meeting him. We were playing similar games, i enjoyed his streams a lot 
  and the guy genuinely seemed very supportive towards me. Sometimes i wish he wouldn't get frustrated on stream so easily, but that's 
  probably caused by the insane grind this guy has been going for and whenever he takes short breaks he seems much more relaxed 
  afterwards. Overall just a fantastic guy! I really hope we can get back to racing one another again in 2020. 
- There are also a bunch of people i really don't have much in common with in regards to what games we play, but still have insane 
  amounts of respect for them. From the top of my head Juanly and Sudo come to mind. Juanly is easily the funniest person in PSR and 
  really just a great guy overall. Sudo is probably one of the nicest people in PSR and seems to be on the same page as i am in regards 
  to wanting to help beginners out.
- Barrown is someone i already knew prior to the entire speedrunning project, but the most supportive person out there. I appreciate 
  you sticking around for so long and all the help you provided ! 
- JimB: Great commentator and always a great guy to have around !
- All the great routers out there: Wether it's Wartab, Wsop (again), Sinstar or Pokeguy, i admire the passion you guys put into these 
  games, almost putting more time and effort into routing and perfecting the runs than actually doing runs themselves.


Plans for 2020: 

- Red sub 1:50. It needs to happen, wether i like it or not. It seems incredibly free and if it wasnt for that stupid Pidgeot that 
  killed my best two runs ever it would've happened already. 
- Improve my Sword AND Shield times: These games are actually great fun for me and so different compared to Red, feels like a breath of 
  fresh air. Sadly they're also insanely long so it's hard to fit them in my schedule. 
- Learn new Pokemon games: Gen2 for the brief amount i played it this year was a lot of fun and i definitly would like to learn 
  Gold/Crystal propperly. Sadly all the other games i'd like to learn , for example gen3 or gen6, require additional hardware. I hope i 
  can eventually afford getting everything i need for those games but currently i need to deal with what i have. 
- Finally attend an offline marathon: I really wanna meet a bunch of the PSR guys at a marathon this year. I was sad i couldn't go to 
  BSG in august because of my exams, but i'll make sure i'm coming this year. 
- Trying to do more marathon runs: Wether it's online, offline, english or maybe even a german marathon/showcase. I wanna get my name 
  out there and see how i'm able to perform in these kinds of situation. I have creazy anxiety when it comes to doing anything infront 
  of people and i think the best way to deal with that is challenging myself and trying to get used to it.
- Maybe learn some games from other genres: The games that come immediately to mind are Mario 64 and The Binding of Isaac. Those are 
  just fantastioc games and M64 is probably my favourite speedrunning game overall, so atleast learning some of the routes sounds 
  extremely fun to me. 
- Also a big maybe: Actually providing some educational content for Pokemon Speedrunning. I already attempted this last year, but 
  wasn't really satisfied with what i ended up with and never finished it. I will probably do this from scratch again this year and    
  hopefully end up with something to be proud of. 


Well, that's about it. This became way longer than expected. And i probably forgot about most of the things i wanted to talk about. 
Anyway, i don't expect a single person the read the entirety of this, but it gives me a feeling of closure with the year 2019. 

Thanks for reading if you got this far !