Sandwich post

There is that theory that if you want to pass bad news you should sandwich it between good news. And I think that how I should write about Amsterdam marathon and the whole trip. That might work… so, let start.

Chapter 1
This was first marathon for me in over 4.5 years. So, that was like a first marathon again. And straight away I was in pacing business. This marathon was a first marathon for Maggie, my cousin. She wanted to run and finish her first marathon. Maggie asked me to find marathon which will be actually good to start marathon adventure. Ohhh… and to finish as well 😉 I have decided that Amsterdam would be great to run. Route is relatively flat, city is great to spend weekend.
Maggie wanted to finish her first marathon but she didn’t have any particular finishing time in mind. We agreed for 4 hours… But that was initially until I have seen what is my cousin pace during our training runs. And than finishing predicted time changed. We have agreed for 3:45. My thought was – ‘That can be challenging for me as well’ considering that Virtual London marathon wasn’t great for me. But WTH, we need to finish this marathon.
That was for marathon but we weren’t there alone. Bozena, my Wife, was running half marathon as well. Weekend was full of running…
So, I was a pacer. And, even that it was my first marathon in ages, I was able to pace to our intended time. Actually even faster. We finished just above 3.43 which was almost 2 minutes less than we intended. Route was easy to pace, quite flat. So, even pace did the trick. And experience of running with other person just reminded me how I like to help others when comes to running. Maggie was really focus on ‘the run’. Total tunnel vision. Would say that’s even worse than me 😉 But that has allowed her to stick with pace and achieve her goal. Not sure if she saw actually Amsterdam when we were running.
I must say that for me it wasn’t very easy. After 32 km power was gone. Could feel that but I was ok with jogging till end. But looking on the official splits I was actually doing quite well still. Almost even pace. Which was amazing. But yes, body is still not ready for 42.2 km. Route need to be flat, extra motivation needs to be there as well.
And I think there was extra, extra motivation. Wanted to be at the finishing line when Bozena was finishing. And we were there, in stadium. Haven’t seen the finish but we met Bozena straight after. She was very happy with running her first official half marathon. Only run. I couldn’t be more proud of her…
Ohhh… and need to say that after not running for so long I have forgot to take my bib from the hotel and realized that on route to marathon being in metro. Bozenka went back for it and save the day for me… almost in last minute (just 15 minutes before official start)…

Chapter 2
The bad… I could say that this will include some marathon things. Ok, first… Cause Amsterdam is a well recognized marathon you could expect better starter pack. Not only bib number and t-shirt (half marathon had to pay for t-shirt). No goodie bag at the end. Just medal. Next thing would be expo… tiny. Again with well established marathon you could expect little bit bigger event. Starting point. Brilliant placing – Olympic Stadium – but not prep for so many runners (45 000 across full, half marathon and 8 km). Being in wave no 2 me and Maggie were waiting outside stadium stands, outside the gate to be let into our wave space into stadium. It took so long that I had to use toilet (was chili) and was told that we can go inside stadium if we will start with last wave. Not great option to overtake all slower runners during marathon but at least we were inside and was much warmer. We could see that actually many runners from earlier waves did the same. Before we started I think that elite was already 45 minutes into their run. And need to consider that there was no time gaps between waves. It was wave after wave. And the last one, which I think is big again, are the the water stations. Marathon is running most on the time through narrow roads, either bike lanes or one traffic lane and when you add to that water stations it is getting very cramped. Spaces between volunteers very small and that caused runners to get into each other way or crashing into each other.
The ugly… Journey home. During whole weekend commute was brilliant. From airport – no problem, metro each day – no issues. But Monday coming back home was a disaster. Trains from Amsterdam Central delayed, or not arriving. After 15 minutes we got delayed one but after 1 minute of closing the door we were told that this train will not go any further. And another wait, jumping between platforms. At the end we left station 35 minutes after planned. But still arrived to airport 2:15 before flight. No, checking bags, so it should be easy. Nope, nah, nada. Organisation on the airport was bad. Nobody took into consideration that there will be plenty of people leaving Amsterdam on Sunday and Monday. It took us 1:45 to eventually get through security. No time for souvenirs, checking gifts. Just quick toilet break and run to gate. For the first time we were happy that Ryanair was slightly delayed. Really bad experience with journey back.

Chapter 3
And the last part – good sandwich. It was a brilliant city break. Amsterdam is really, really nice. And spending couple of days in there in nice company is even better. Wandering on the small streets, overlooking nice canals. That is the ultimate experience. When looking for restaurant or coffee shop you need to remember that bikes are not stopping for anyone in Amsterdam. Slightly dangerous streets cause of bikes but that is as well the charm. What else… Defo people. They are so friendly. Always willing to help. And everyone can speak English. They have really nice restaurants. And if you there go to ‘KAMPAI’. Great food, brill atmosphere and sometimes free drinks. Great staff. Lad who running restaurant/bar is brill with guests. Very accommodating and even if there is nothing you like in the menu they can accommodate you with something…
So, this trip was like a sandwich… But at the end there is KAMPAI.