Amsterdam Marathon Oct 10

[ladyrunner]

I have entered myself for this one. It's was a bit of a rush decision one hour before I went away on my camping holiday last week. Now I have returned and need to start thinking about how I am going to get there and where I am going to stay.

Am going along with an ex-race walker friend from Spain, who is coming to stay in Brighton for 3 months. If I can get them put on my insurance I suppose one option would be to take my motorhome and find a campsite close to the start. If anyone has any experience of the Amsterdam Marathon including travel/accomodation tips they would be much appreciated.

Just need to start some training now but I'm not going for a time, just want to try and enjoy the race.

Julie

[El Gordo]

I have entered myself for this one. It's was a bit of a rush decision one hour before I went away on my camping holiday last week. Now I have returned and need to start thinking about how I am going to get there and where I am going to stay.

Am going along with an ex-race walker friend from Spain, who is coming to stay in Brighton for 3 months. If I can get them put on my insurance I suppose one option would be to take my motorhome and find a campsite close to the start. If anyone has any experience of the Amsterdam Marathon including travel/accomodation tips they would be much appreciated.

Just need to start some training now but I'm not going for a time, just want to try and enjoy the race.

Julie

Good on yer.

I don't think any of the regulars here have done the Amsterdam Marathon. I find a good source of info about maras, including loads of reviews from people who've done them, is www.marathonguide.com. Look up the race and you should get a load of stories from years past. NB a lot of the reviews come from Americans who can get a bit moany about things (not that I've read what they say about this one).

All I know about it is that it's dead flat. No doubt you'll tell us more afterwards. In fact, a race report is a requirement . Have fun, and don't stray into any of those cafés until after the race.

[ladyrunner]

Been back from Amsterdam for a few weeks now and just realised that I haven't been on here to let you all know how I got on. We had a very enjoyable weekend there. Spent the majority of the first half of the weekend getting lost. It's a good idea to take along a European map and not rely on the sole use of a GB&NI (only) sat nav to try and get you there!!

Left home at 5pm on Friday night and finally arrived in Amsterdam on Saturday at 5pm. The drive was much longer than I had anticipated. From memory the RAC European Route finder had quoted me about 3.5 hours to get from Calais to Amsterdam (it took almost that long to find my way out of Ostende after an over night stop in a car park).

Anyway as for the Marathon. It was a pleasure to run as for once I took a comfortable pace from the start. Average splits were about 27:15 for every 5km apart from the last one which was slightly quicker (26:30). I ran the whole race with my Spanish race walking friend at his pace and we finished in 3hr 48mins. We were both very pleased with the time as our aim was to go for sub 4hrs. And this was 20mins faster than I managed at Brighton Marathon.

The only disappointing thing about the weekend was that we didn't get to see the centre of Amsterdam and didn't get to try out any of the cakes or local beers. One drawback to going with a serious athlete I guess.

Roll on Almeria 2011 .

Julie

ps Basic Spanish version of the weekend to follow written by myself!!

I have entered myself for this one. It's was a bit of a rush decision one hour before I went away on my camping holiday last week. Now I have returned and need to start thinking about how I am going to get there and where I am going to stay.

Am going along with an ex-race walker friend from Spain, who is coming to stay in Brighton for 3 months. If I can get them put on my insurance I suppose one option would be to take my motorhome and find a campsite close to the start. If anyone has any experience of the Amsterdam Marathon including travel/accomodation tips they would be much appreciated.

Just need to start some training now but I'm not going for a time, just want to try and enjoy the race.

Julie

Good on yer.

I don't think any of the regulars here have done the Amsterdam Marathon. I find a good source of info about maras, including loads of reviews from people who've done them, is www.marathonguide.com. Look up the race and you should get a load of stories from years past. NB a lot of the reviews come from Americans who can get a bit moany about things (not that I've read what they say about this one).

All I know about it is that it's dead flat. No doubt you'll tell us more afterwards. In fact, a race report is a requirement . Have fun, and don't stray into any of those cafés until after the race.

[Antonio247]

Congratulations, Julie. You seem to be quite fit and recovered from your injury in spring. Did your Spanish friend race walk the whole marathon?

I haven´t managed to do more than an 8 km run yet. I´ve got to train harder if I want to finish Almería half. By the way, I phoned the organisers a few days ago and I was told it will be held on 30th January this year.

Saludos desde Almería

[ladyrunner]

Antonio,

Yes he walked the whole way. It's a very fast time for walking.

Thank you for the date. I have been having spanish lessons for 5 months and am very much looking forward to practising what I have learnt. Might need a few beers for dutch courage though.

Julie

Congratulations, Julie. You seem to be quite fit and recovered from your injury in spring. Did your Spanish friend race walk the whole marathon?

I haven´t managed to do more than an 8 km run yet. I´ve got to train harder if I want to finish Almería half. By the way, I phoned the organisers a few days ago and I was told it will be held on 30th January this year.

Saludos desde Almería

[Antonio247]

Yes, it is really fast. I wish I could run the half marathon at that speed.

It will be fantastic to talk to you in Spanish when we meet again.

Hasta pronto

Antonio

Antonio,

Yes he walked the whole way. It's a very fast time for walking.

Thank you for the date. I have been having spanish lessons for 5 months and am very much looking forward to practising what I have learnt. Might need a few beers for dutch courage though.

Julie

Congratulations, Julie. You seem to be quite fit and recovered from your injury in spring. Did your Spanish friend race walk the whole marathon?

I haven´t managed to do more than an 8 km run yet. I´ve got to train harder if I want to finish Almería half. By the way, I phoned the organisers a few days ago and I was told it will be held on 30th January this year.

Saludos desde Almería

[marathondan]

Congratulations Julie, a fantastic result (and somewhat modestly reported it must be said). I take it then that you've managed a good period of injury-free training? What's the secret? Have you just cut back on the miles?

[ladyrunner]

Hi Dan

I'm probably doing more miles now but am mainly only race walking for training. I'm training 4 or 5 times a week, but every time I train I am running for 13-15 minutes as a warm up then walking for the rest of the session.

For Amsterdam Marathon I only did two long training walk/runs. 3 weeks before I did 30k (15k walking followed by 15k running) and 2 weeks before I did 25k (15k walking/12k running).

My calves have been good since I started the walking back in August and my hip and back stiffness has almost disappeared too. I'm starting to feel like a young woman again and no longer feel like a crippled old woman LOL .

And I'm getting fitter and faster too. I started off by walking the Parkrun 5k in 30 minutes and now I am down to 26:36, which is only 4 minutes slower than I was running back in June/July.

Hoping to try running a cross country at the end of November to see how my speed running fitness is and to see how I fair against a few of my local rivals.

Julie

[marathondan]

Amazing, Jules. You've thrown out the running rulebook and can still complete a sub 4 marathon -- and getting better. We can probably all learn something from this...

[marathondan]

Incidentally Julie, are you practising proper race-walking technique (the slightly quaint-looking action seen on TV) or are you going with more of a power-walking style?

[ladyrunner]

Yes I'm practising the proper race-walking technique. With race-walking over a few months of consistent training you can build up your speed and technique to be able to train at a high pulse rate, therefore getting all the benefits of running but without the impact, which in my case over a matter of time causes injuries.

For a brisk training walk of 7 miles I am comfortable walking at 150 bpm which takes me 68 minutes, but today I raced 7 miles walking in London which took 60:30 at an estimated 165-170 bpm. I wasn't wearing my pulse monitor but I was walking as hard as I would have been if I was doing a running race.

Julie

[El Gordo]

7 miles in an hour? Wow, that's going some. It's much faster than my plodding rate.

[marathondan]

Strewth. So the message is: if you're around a 3:45 marathoner or slower, don't bother running. Learn race walking technique and save your joints.

[brain explodes]

[Bierzo Baggie]

Strewth. So the message is: if you're around a 3:45 marathoner or slower, don't bother running. Learn race walking technique and save your joints.

[brain explodes]

Yep, I'd go for that. Mixing walking (coventional one step in front of the other walking, not race walking) with running has certainly worked for me over the last few years, and it's a lot healthier. Of course if you want to go really fast then forget it, but if extending your shelf life is your goal I'd certainly agree with the above for longer distances. In some of the hill running events I actually save time by resisting the temptation to run in places where I 'd just waste too much valuable energy!

Cheers! Very interesting thread.