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Amsterdam Marathon 2012
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Simon MacD - previous was 4.10. Just goes to show what intervals work can do.
Squirrellypoo - how did the knee hold out?
And for everyone who felt they didn't have a good day today - Someone I was listening to recently (got a feeling it was on Marathon Talk) said something along the lines of the difference between a good day and a bad day can be in your head. You can run on a good course, where the weather's perfect, where your taper's been perfect, where you got the right amount of sleep the week before, where you were perfectly hydrated, where you took your gels at the right time or whatever. Just because on your next run you don't hit the same time, doesn't mean that you're a worse runner, just means the conditions weren't right for you on the day. There'll be other days when the conditions are more in your favour.
Although whoever I'm quoting said it more eloquently than I can.
Anyway - I'm now off to do battle with the Amsterdam public transport system and see if I can reach the Hole in the Wall. If you haven't seen me in about two hours, it means I've boarded the wrong train/tram/bus and am currently heading for the docks/Anne Frank's house/Brussels.
Went to the pub for a couple of hours but back now. Sadly have to work tomorrow (asked for a day off which was met with a resounding 'no'!) it's going to be a big day. We saw a lot of runners at the pub but no RW crew. Enjoyed making a tit of myself asking everyone with a medal and/ or a limp if they were RW. Reactions were mostly positive except for a miserable couple who looked at me like I had 3 heads and had told them i was about to murder their children.
Sorry we missed you Weedy. Hope you're enjoying a nice beer nonetheless
Cheers H
Same as you - turned up and couldn't find anyone
Amsterdam public transport is evil incarnate. There's no other way to describe it.
Well done EVERYONE x
Now when everyone is back in the land of ther living and sufficiently recovered - give me the lowdown on Amsterdam marathon (flat? support? whether it is worthwhile doing? etc)
Hi all,
A little late but just wanted to pop in. I also managed a huge PB of: 4.55.53 (so i'm now officially the slowest plodder on the thread!). It was a bit of a dull course but apart from that.
I saw at the back a lot of people struggling - a few of them looked absolutely shot through.
That's a load of crap! I saw your finish time!
For what you went through - i'm so impressed that you finished. There's a reason we say: WWKD?
OUCH!!! Slammed head first into the wall at 20M.
Last 10k was complete and utter agony, like hell on earth and I still now have no idea how I managed to avoid walking. I found the course really busy and saw various targets slip out of my grasp. At 17M I was on for a 3:49 and felt great, thought I'd coast home and get a nice PB. But just 3M later the wheels came off spectacularly and I went from great to a complete mess. Legs just emptied and I stumbled, cramped and lurched to the line - was at 20M in 2:55 but took a whopping 1:12 for the final 10k!!! Horrible, horrible feeling, a 4:07 for me but still smiling at the finish and won't let my first encounter with THE WALL deter me! In an odd way I am kinda glad I smacked right into the wall, I am treating it as a positive and will learn from it. Massive learning curve for me yesterday on marathon#2 found out far more than I did on my debut and will come back stronger and better on marathon#3.
And hey, Berlin opens on Thursday so BRING. IT. ON!
Well done to everyone else on this thread, sounds like there was a lot of PB's and excellent performances. Well done one and all!
Hi Karen.
Was my first time doing Amsterdam - here's my thoughts for what they're worth.
Expo - in a sports hall next to the stadium, which makes life easier for getting your bearings ahead of race day. Get your race number, then in the main expo hall, there's a place where you pick up your run T-shirt (there's a voucher inside the race number pack you have to hand over)
Start and finish - Olympic stadium was a great venue, and doing a sprint finish around the track to the end was pretty smart.
Toilets - there's some in the start pens, but I wouldn't say loads. For blokes, there's the open-air four-man stalls, but it was slightly disconcerting standing there having a wee in front of thousands of spectators in the stands. Or maybe slightly exciting if you're that way inclined.
Bag drop - easy. There's a line of tents, pick the shortest queue and get a number to stick on your bag and a number to stick on your bib. Go to the tents in the middle of the line, as the ones at either end had big queues. I arrived outside the stadium at about 8.50 and made it through the bag drop, into the stadium and into my pen with about ten mins to go before the 9.30am start.
Course - pancake-flat, first third through the city, second third along the river, last third back into the city. Had a nice mix of scenery, and trying to keep up with the rowers on the river helped keep me focused. Don't know how people at other paces found it, but I set off in orange group and found it fairly easy to work my way past people without being blocked in. There's a couple of sections where the runners go past each other along two sides of the same street. Were maybe a dozen bands and DJs along the way, including a singer on a barge going up and down the river.
Drink stations - seemed a little chaotic, but not a massive problem. Drinks are in cups rather than bottles. Even pinching the top of the cup I still managed to spill about half of it each time. If you do it, run with a bottle. Some stations had bananas (pre-peeled), sports drinks (again, in cups) and gels. Don't make the same mistake I did at the first drink station and take a sports drink thinking it's water. The first few tables at each station are sports drinks, then the water.
Crowds - great support, and at some points they were fairly packed. Along the river and industrial section they thinned out, but there were groups of people all the way. Really packed in the final km.
Hotel - I stayed at the Citizen M at Schipol airport. V 'trendy'. Rooms are small (7ft by maybe 20ft), with the shower and toilet in the room itself, with curved glass doors that you open and close. No kettle though. If you're travelling on your own, I'd recommend it, but if you're with someone else you'd be getting under each other's feet. 195 euros for two nights, with four free computers to use in the lobby.
Public transport - evil, evil, evil. Altho I'm a bit of an idiot, so it might just be me. In theory, it should be good - there's umpteen tram lines, umpteen bus lines, umpteen train lines, but making sense of it all hurt my head. On race morning, there's loads of road closures as well, so don't trust advice from the hotel as they might not realise some bus/tram stops are out of action. Reckon the best idea is to use trains if poss as they were unaffected by the closures.
I was thinking about doing Dublin or Venice this time next year, but I'm now humming and haa-ing whet
...whether to come back
I started in Orange too Weedy but was towards the back and unfortunately, they just begin to let all the pens out and it became chaos at the beginning - I took over 11mins to cross the start line. My own fault for arriving at the start so late, I was tucked away in the stands of the stadium trying to keep warm! But this did lead to being behind a lot of slower runners. My advice to anyone running it in future, is get closer to the front of your pen.
I agree with your thoughts on the course, nice mix of city and the stretch along the Amstel broke it up a little - but that section was narrow and if you're stuck behind a wall of runners, frustrating at times. The 'hill' at 23M wasn't as bad as I feared and overall I thought the course was great. I will have to go back sometime because it would've been great to enjoy that support in the final few miles but by then I was in my own little cocoon and just focused on one foot in front of the other! I'll take your word for the sprint finish in the stadium, maybe next time!
I stayed at Citizen M too, but the City one. Amazing location, just 20/30min walk from the stadium, 2mins away from Amsterdam Zuid station which itself is 6mins from Schipol. Agree on the trendy 'pods' I had a lot of fun on Saturday afternoon! However, it's a long way out of the centre of Amsterdam and there's zip to do around there. The free films came in handy as did BBC1 and if you are on your own like I was for a flying visit of land, run, fly home then it was an excellent base - the staff were great too.
I also thought the whole event had a great feel to it. It was my first experience of a European marathon and I have to say I liked it. The locals came out in force and supported the event and I loved the rave up in the old VW's dotted about the course! Great event for the English too, I heard so many English voices while running. And it was great to tick off the countries taking part too, I spotted Denmark, Italy, France, Spain, Sweden, Scotland, Germany, South Africa, Brazil and of course the Netherlands on the backs of running tops! It really had a great international flavour to it.
I would say run it Karen, you won't be disappointed.
Monk - When I say sprint finish, i mean going at a slightly faster shuffle than the previous three miles.
Well done everyone! 2:49, first ever marathon so pretty pleased with that.
It was my 5th AMS marathon, and I'm with you. Indeed it's one of the most 'international' marathons. Wore my union jack vest which gets you into a few chats and quite a bit of support
I would say however quite a few people this morning have said they were disappointed with the support. Heavy sure enough round the stadium and in some of the residential areas, however there's a lot down by the river and industrial areas where it's pretty quiet. I guess it depends what you're comparing to. Just don't expect anything like London or NY.
Weedy - Dublin's a blast (if only for the Guinness), Berlin is brilliant too The Monk. Not done Venice. Can't imagine how that would go. Wet?
Think I might have seen you H. Red hair in a ponytail, singlet with union jack covering the full back?
Me and Guinness don't get on with one another. I had three pints one night when I was about 18. I'll spare you the details, but I've never touched a drop since.
That could also have been me...
I was wearing a black shirt underneath though...
Thanks for the previous advice re transport to the stadium, it worked out okay in the end.
Well done everyone.
Drinks stations were well manned IMO, don't like cups though generally.
Amsterdam transport worked more than well enough to get me back to airport for 1730 flight so no complaints there. Just had to walk far enough away from the route for the trams to be unimpacted
Wasn't impressed with plastic sheeting for cover at end.
will definitely be back.
Short overview (as i've just lost my long winded overview)
Expo: too small for number of people - especially for the tshirt collection.
Toilets: I thought it was OK but definitely not enough en route.
Route: A tad dull especially running out in the countryside and the industrial estates.
Supporters: Not a lot but more around the end
End: Easy to go through the end tunnel but then to only be given a cup of water and half a banana wasn't enough. Also, where was the goody bag?!?
Medal: I appreciated that the full marathon medal was DOUBLE the size of the half.
Public Transport: A lot to be desired for the metro. Only having the first one from 7.45 meant the first few trains were packed. Same for the way back
Start time: Good for the marathon
Aid stations: I thought the drink stations were well placed out but i dont like cups. Give me the little packets of water or a bottle. I didnt have any of the sports drink so cannot comment on that.
PB-ability: 10/10
I think that was me you saw. In the Paris t-shirt... You didn't look too happy. good on you for slugging it out though!!
I am now a SUB 4 hr marathon runner coming in at 3:55:56!!! Am still smiling and getting a bit teary at the thought! It's so much fun starting off my pb with a 3.
Great race reports everyone. I pretty much concur. The congestion at the start and coming back up the canal really annoyed me, along with the cups for water BUT the start and finish in the stadium were brilliant!
Sorry we didn't get to the pub, after a few bubbles the thought of going all the way down the stairs and across the city was a bit much
I started in the orange pen, which was a big mistake, as after 3K I was already 3 minutes off the 3:30 hour pace. By 20k I had made up the time, but the effort in doing so caught up with me at 32k, when the wheels started to come loose. By 40k the wheels were well and truly off. Pleased with my PB though. 3:30 will have to wait....
I think I enjoyed Berlin more, probably because it was my first, and the weather was good. Enjoyed a great day in Amsterdam today - sunshine and 18 degrees. Even walked round Vondelpark. Enjoyed it this time!
Well done on your sub4.
I didn't get on well with the cups. I found that I had to stop to drink otherwise I just got a face full of water! Also I found a lot of people stopping which made it difficult to get the cups.
With the transport, I tried looking up the trams times the night before but for some reason I couldn't get to the timetable page. But I though I had it sorted from looking at the times at the stops. However in the morning I discovered that the tram number I was going to get wasn't running. So I had to catch a different tram to central station to then get the metro which was cramped with runners.
Having said all that. I though that it was a good event. I like the fact your friends and family can watch you at the start and end. And the biggest plus was that I PB by 8 minutes
What you need to do with cups is slow down slightly, extend your arm and take the cup slightly behind your body, so the cup doesn't take the full force of your running momentum. Then pinch the cup at one end to create a 'lip', and drink through that. Simples.
I found it helpful to practice this technique using a parked car on which to rest the cup when training...