Amsterdam 26.2

In April this year I ran London Marathon. Two weeks later, I signed up for the 42nd TCS Amsterdam Marathon, 16th October 2016. I signed up with the nudge from my sister Joan who would run the half marathon on the same day.

After a very successful summer of racing, training and TLC at home I moved back to London to start year 2 physiotherapy. Continuing to tell myself that Amsterdam was a “no pressure” race, I decided that a 3hr 10 marathon was the aim. Training was going very well. This would be a 2 minute PB!

Race weekend arrived and it was great to have my mum, dad, older sister and twin sister all together in the Dam for the weekend. Joan and I went for a Saturday morning (8am) jog in a rainy Wester park. She gave me a backy on the bike to Central station and I ran after her until we got home. We collected our race numbers at the Olympic Stadium and spent the rest of the day popping into markets and Irish bars with the family finishing it off in O’ Reilly’s. Water was the drink of choice.

While eating my porridge the morning of the race at 7:30am, I wrote the mile splits for a 3:10 finish in pen up my forearm! I made my way to the Olympic Stadium from Dam Square. It was freezing. The tram was packed but Amsterdam is always so relaxed so if I was any more laid back I would have been horizontal. I arrived at the stadium and joined a port-a-loo queue with only a 5-minute wait. WIN. No queue for the bag drop either. This was going too well, until we all made our way to the start line. A bottle neck standstill for 25 minutes only gave me 3 minutes before the gun to join my yellow start. Panic stations over! The yellow start was 2:40-3:00 hour predicted time! What was I thinking when I registered haha?! I started behind the elites which was awesome and when the start gun popped I was so excited.

The first 3 miles were a bit slow and turbulent through Vondel Park and my legs felt heavy and tired from the half marathon race the week before. Pace was 7:23” by the time we got to the famous Rijks Museum. I was way off plan. Doubts quickly entered my head and I was feeling a bit crappy. Self-talk played a key role here and I just kept saying “enjoy the day” and “no pressure”. I took on a caffeine gel at mile 5 as I hadn't eaten in over 2 hours by then and that seemed to help. I only drank water at the water stations (they were cups so it was pretty hilarious trying to drink on the go at pace). The water stations were ideally placed along the course offering isotonic drink, water, gels and bananas.

I found my stride by mile 9 and that was where we hit the lovely River Amstel. It was flat and sunny and the locals cheered us on from their boats and DJ’s played music around the route. I cruised into the halfway mark at 1:34, bang on schedule. The homemade pace markers on my forearm came in very handy that day as I didn’t need to work out my predicted finish time or figure out if I was ahead or behind so I fully recommend doing this if you are a long distance racer. Pete, an Exeter class mate from 2010 shouted at me at mile 14 which was a great surprise. I had my last gel at mile 15 and cruised into mile 20 and back into the city feeling absolutely fine. I couldn’t say the same for every male runner I passed out after that! Dropped like flies. My pace quickened to 7:12”. My attention now turned to mile 23 where my ever ready family were going to be to cheer me to the end.

At mile 23, as I approached the only hill of the entire race, (Amsterdam is as flat as a pancake), I heard Joan roar my name. I was so delighted and proud to see my dad, mum, Sandra and Joan and the Irish flag. I was put down as a ‘GBR’ entrant on the tracking app so they made a point that I was in fact very Irish and that Britain only had me for a little while! At that point they were on the tracking app and thought my finish time was beyond 3:12 and for the first time in 4 marathons I wasn’t as “cheery” as I usually was! They were completely wrong as I was feeling absolutely ace and I knew I was on for a 3:10 marathon PB. By this point every spectator was cheering my name purely because I was the only woman runner they had seen in a long time. I felt like a boss!!

At mile 24 I came back to Vondel Park and hated every inch of it but kept pace 7:12". We ran the last 2 miles reverse of the first 2 miles so I knew where I could kick and just plough on. I reached the last 500m and it felt like a million miles to the track. The last 300 meters were on the track and it felt awesome crossing the line with a stadium packed full of cheering supporters. As soon as I stopped I fell to the floor and had a decent cry of joy, pride, relief and pain! I had actually done it. I ran a new PB of 3:09:26. 2 minutes 40 seconds quicker than London. It is 8 days later and it still hasn’t sunk in.

After the race I was barely able to walk to the bag drop (I wasn't injured just literally couldn't walk) but was pleasantly surprised to be thanked by two lovely Englishmen for being their race pacer for the first 16 miles. I had no idea they were behind me and they lost me at mile 16 when I picked up pace. I was delighted as they also got PBs. I called my sister Sandra and told her I would meet them at Heineken museum to cheer on Joan in her half marathon. She had a great run and I am very proud of her for sticking with it as her official personal best of “the longest duration ever running”. Well done Joanie. My favourite moment was showing my dad my medal after the race. It was his 2nd ever time seeing me race and his 1st as a marathon supporter. I am always very grateful to have my family there to share my experiences, otherwise it would be a pretty lonely road I think.

Overall, a massive thumbs up to Amsterdam marathon who held a great marathon, half marathon and 8km race series in one day. I recommend this race for anyone who is looking for a friendly, fast, flat European city marathon event.

Here are a few statistics:

19th woman out of 1,068 senior women

844th out of a total 12,193 marathon runners!

4th marathon in 4 years:

Dublin 3:42

Paris 3:28

London 3:12

Amsterdam 3:09

Next marathon sub 3hrs!

For a race with zero hills this is completely irrelevant---->

#amsterdam #marathon #running