Race Date: Sunday 21st October 2018

This was my fifth international running event with ‘Peggy’s tours’ – and an excellent time was had by all – Richard Pegg had kindly sorted everyone out, and the trip came with ‘repeated Dad-jokes-a-plenty’ courtesy of Peggster and Goldstar productions.

The weekend has three events – a marathon, a half and a city 8k. We all agreed that the support and course were good (Holland being notably flat so good PB potential) – with excellent ‘perk-you-up’ music at regular intervals. The finish in the stadium was a particular high, as it felt like everyone was cheering you in! Downsides were the busyness of the course (and the exit at the end), – the half was particularly congested from the ‘business half marathon event’ – which basically meant avoiding loads of exhausted corporate runners walking by the 4km point.

Amsterdam Marathon

Three of the group completed the Amsterdam marathon, which was in the morning. The conditions were perfect – not too hot or cold, and little wind. Special Kudos to Richard Pegg after months of making sure we all had our events sorted had failed to book himself in.  However, as luck would have it, despite being in recovery from a nasty injury, a place came up from one ‘Hugo Adolfo’ for the marathon at 8pm the night before. Richard had already been liquid carb-loading and thought his ‘marathon jog’ would be an excellent step up from his 10k completed the week before.  Kudos also to John Rawlinson, who was ‘pulling out’ the Saturday night due to a serious groin injury which left him ‘unable to walk’ – yet somehow managed a really good, fast race. Extreme maranoia! Mir Jansen also had a good run, clocking in another sub 4 marathon.

Lawrence Cherono the Amsterdam Marathon with a time of 2:04:06 setting a new course record.  The women’s race also saw a repeat win for last year’s victor, with Tadelech Bekele crossing the finish line in 2:23:14.

Marathon results.