By: Laura Mella
Race Date: 20th October, 2024.

This is really long and self-indulgent, but I make no apology because marathons are very hard.

I decided to enter the Amsterdam Marathon back in the summer after my plans to run London were scuppered by an ongoing calf injury, followed by a muscle spasm in my back that rendered me completely immobile for a while. I was devastated to miss my chance to run London, but was determined that I would do a marathon in 2024. I started looking for an autumn marathon but was feeling pretty uninspired by the local options of York and Chester, so when I saw Amsterdam, it felt right – it’s a brilliant (and flat) city I’ve visited before, and running could be combined with a holiday. If the worst came to the worst and I couldn’t run, I could feel sad in Amsterdam instead of feeling sad at home.

Training began cautiously, including weekly long runs, strength and conditioning work and other bits and bobs throughout the week. I opted not to introduce any speed work for fear of further injury flare-ups, and structured sessions were focused on running at marathon pace, or thereabouts. Unfortunately this training block wasn’t the most consistent – it was disrupted by more injury niggles, a very stressful period at work which resulted in me taking voluntary redundancy, a nasty bout of COVID and various other stresses, all of which disrupted my routine and messed with my mental resilience, which for me is by far, the hardest part of marathon training. A particularly memorable training run ended with me crying on the Trans-Pennine Trail when I limped back covered in blisters and with a heavy sense of defeat. Marathon training is HARD. Luckily, the taper worked wonders and I found myself feeling a lot better in the week before the race – my Garmin told me I was ‘Peaking’ (a status I had never seen before and will probably never see again), and a stubborn black toenail that had been hanging on for weeks finally fell off – I took this as a good omen!

I arrived in Amsterdam on Friday night with my husband, Pete in tow. We headed out for food and then met up with fellow Striders John Egginton and Hannah Murton, who were also in town for the weekend. On Saturday I did far too much walking (and also the Amsterdamse Bos parkrun with Hannah, because who could resist?!), went for an early tea in a chaotic pizza restaurant, then retired to the hotel for an early night.

After a fretful night’s sleep, race day dawned and I went for breakfast at the hotel, which was crammed full of marathon runners. I’d hoped to have porridge, but they seemed to have every breakfast food in the world except for porridge, so I had to make do with corn flakes and a bread roll, washed down with two beet shots (revolting) and tried not to panic that everything was already ruined by a bad breakfast.

After a short tram ride and a 1.5km walk I arrived at race HQ unreasonably early and absolutely full of nerves. Naturally I used the time to make multiple trips to the portaloo until it was time to ditch the jumper at the bag drop (incredibly efficient and no queue) and head to the start area. The Amsterdam Marathon has two start areas; the best one starts on the track in the Olympic Stadium, but people who signed up late (like me) started on a neighbouring street, with the routes merging after about 1km. We were herded into pens according to estimated finish times, and I lined-up with runners who were looking to run between 3 – 3.5 hours – a big time gap, and I was definitely towards the lower end of this estimate! There was a real mixture of excitement and terror in the start pens, and a real mix of nationalities – apparently there were participants from over 150 different countries, which felt really exciting! The gun went off and so did we – smoothly over the start line with no bottleneck at all, which was a pleasant surprise.

The marathon route is very flat, as you might expect, winding through the beautiful Vondelpark and the archway of the stunning Rijksmuseum, before heading into an area with taller, more modern buildings and then a long loop out into the countryside along the Amstel river, coming back into the city through a less beautiful industrial estate before returning to the nice bit, back through the Vondelpark and finishing in the Olympic Stadium. There was lots to see on the route – spectators lined most of the city sections of the course, and the support was amazing! In particular, it was such a joy to see Hannah and John twice on the route, who gave me a huge cheer and really lifted my spirits. Sadly I managed to completely miss my husband, who apparently saw me twice! I also got loads of cheers and words of encouragement from strangers which really helped, as did reading some of the amazing banners people had made, many of which really made me laugh. There were also lots of entertainers, including beautiful fairground organs, crooners on boats and women with waterjets attached to their feet which held them in their air while they waved flags and danced (these are apparently called Flyboards, and it looks so much fun!). There were water stations about every 5k which had water (in paper cups, not ideal for drinking on the move!), sports drink, bananas and wet sponges (no gels).

My own race started really well. I was aiming for a time around 3.25, and set off at my target pace (which was a little faster than needed for 3.25), settled in and felt really comfortable. I’d written the 5k splits on my arm (I think in miles and the km markers were no use to me whatsoever), and I was bang on target up until 25km, I’d taken all my gels as planned and was feeling really pleased with myself – all I needed to do was keep this up for another 17k! Easy?, right! Shortly after 25k and my quads started gently reminding me that they were working quite hard, and would like to slow down a bit. From here it all went a bit pear-shaped. I fully expected the wheels to fall off after 20 miles, but I hadn’t anticipated that I would fade so early. My legs started to hurt and the pain set in, and from here until the end was absolutely horrendous. I’d struggled to take on water with the paper cups, and decided that I would have to walk through the water stations, prioritising drinking the water instead of essentially pouring it down my front as I had been doing up until now. I obviously lost a lot of time doing this, but my legs welcomed the brief respite. I also decided to use the wet sponges to stay cool, which were brilliant. It was less brilliant trying not to slip on the millions of discarded sponges on the course after each aid station.

The last 4-5 miles were basically a masterclass in how not to run a marathon. I became more and more crumpled and my legs felt heavier and heavier, and as I entered the stadium my body felt so heavy it was like I was wearing a suit of armour. What should have been a moment of triumph in crossing the finish line in the stadium with a cheering crowd was a pathetic stagger – I was done. Immediately I lost my balance and went all dizzy, and a kind volunteer had to hold me upright for a few minutes until I could support my own weight again. I staggered over to a barrier and slumped onto it for a good 20 minutes – I didn’t even have the energy to answer my phone when I could see my husband calling – he would have to wait. I eventually decided I would try and leave the stadium, walked a few tentative steps and then had to go and slump again, but this time I was violently sick (fun/disgusting fact – beet juice gives you bright purple vomit). Clearly I was not ready for walking yet! 45 minutes after finishing, I finally made it out of the stadium and phoned my husband to come and rescue me and help me stagger through the crowds.

Despite all of this I finished in 3.27.57, which is a new PB by 2.23. While I’m happy to have achieved that, I can’t help feeling disappointed that the race wasn’t better executed. If only I could have held onto my target pace for a little longer! Or perhaps I should have started slower? There are probably many things I could or should have done, but given the state I was in at the end, I’m confident that I really did try very hard. The slogan for the event was ‘Run Your Masterpiece’ – I think my effort was more of a first draft, but hopefully there’s a masterpiece in my future, maybe…

Due to road closures for the race the trams were suspended and I had to walk back to the hotel. I was parched so we stopped in a supermarket. I grabbed some orange juice from the fridge and a bottle of water from the shelf next to it. I left the shop, opened the water and took a huge gulp, then immediately discovered that what I had bought was not water, but in fact white vinegar. I do not recommend this as a post race hydration strategy. Excellent beers in lovely pubs with wonderful friends and family do come highly recommended.

The marathon was won by Tsegaye Getachew (Ethiopia) in 2:05:36 and Yalemzerf Yehualaw (Ethiopia) in 2:16:50 .

The half marathon was won by Julien Devanne (France) in 01:06:30 and Joleen Gedwart (Germany) in 01:19:00

Striders’ results:

(Marathon)