Amsterdam marathon

We'd been planning an autumn marathon for a long time after the success of Florence last year. The decision was taken to try and do as many international marathons as possible, starting in Europe and perhaps moving further afield in the future. Amsterdam was decided upon as the course was flat and fast and the date was perfect allowing everyone to begin marathon preparation after the summer holidays.

My own race schedule this year has been very chaotic and not very logical. I started with good intentions and try to plan my race calendar around 2 marathons per year: one in the spring; and the second in the fall. Any more than this is simply too tiring and the preparations are not feasible if you really want to do your best over the distance. However, my spring marathon was dropped in favour of the Paris ecotrail, an 80km jaunt from St Quentin to the Eiffel Tower, and so the only marathon on the programme for 2012 was in Amsterdam. What I hadn't realised when I made these plans was just how tired I would be after the CCC and how little time I would have to prepare this race seriously.


Our group of Laurence, who wouldn't be running as she's still injured, myself, Sandra, Pascal, Katia and François made our travel plans to the city. Pascal and Sandra would take the plane, while the rest of us would drive there. We left early Saturday morning and by lunch time we'd arrived in the Olympic Stadium to pick up our bibs and explore the marathon exhibition stands.It was relatively quick to pick up the race numbers but the organisation was less successful for the race t-shirts where a huge queue had formed. Whereas there were around 30 people distributing race numbers, there were 2 for the shirts. This was a sign of some of the failures in the organisation that we would come across later. The stands in the pick-up area were scarce and not that interesting either in the products, the presentation or the special offers. We didn't waste any more time and left to check into the hotel and see a little of the city centre.

There are a few things to avoid before running a marathon :

i) Spicy food - too many spices can upset your stomach causing cramps and lack of sleep.
ii) Alcohol - causes dehydration to the body and impacts sleep
iii) Late nights - rest and recovery is essential before the race and a good amount of sleep can help performance.

Of course, I knew about all of these but the temptation of a fantastic Indonesian meal (where only Laurence, Pascal and I ate the really spicy dishes) and a few beers was just too good to avoid. This combined with lack of sleep from getting up early to drive to the city was not the best marathon preparation but what the hell...

We woke up early for breakfast and ate what was available at 6:00 am - not much unfortunately as the restaurant wasn't yet open. Sandra hadn't slept all night, anxious about the race and her and Katia's attempt to beat 3:30 and their PBs over the marathon distance. We got the bus into the city centre and then a metro from Central Station. The first of our problems began. Several hundred runners got on the same metro and the doors wouldn't close. We stood on the train for a good 10 minutes like sardines while the train driver made a further 15 attempts to close the doors to no avail. We changed trains but were now heading east out of the city so had to change trains again at a station 5 stops down the line. Unfortunately, several hundred runners who were on our initial train had the same idea and we then waited with an additional several hundred more runners who were arriving in from the east in the first place. I've never been so squashed for so long on a train before and it was a relief to get out of the metro at Amstelveensweg just a few hundred metres from the stadium and the start of the race. We now had almost a thousand runners trying to get out of the metro station with no officials around and nobody to open the barriers, just the automatic barriers controlling each ticket individually to leave the station. This could have been a disaster with runners pushing from the top of the escalators and stairs, conscious that there was very little time until the start now due to the train's delay.

We walked to the stadium and after a quick toilet stop (many thanks to the Total service station for a lovely clean, warm toilet - gosh that meal last night was spicy !), we entered the stadium, or at least we tried to. We had to queue here too in order to get into the stadium with hundreds of other runners (presumably the same as those on the train with us) and we were actually getting quite anxious as the organisers had stated that the stadium access would close 15 minutes prior to the start of the race. We were in and I left Pascal, François, Sandra and Katia to go their starting pen while I went to mine. I looked for Bruno from the club but there was no sign. I wasn't really surprised as due to my late arrival, I was actually quite a way back from the start line. I did see a former colleague from Mitsubishi, Armel, and I chatted to him and his friends before the gun went. They were attempting to beat 3 hours and were all wearing t-shirts with 'Under 3 hours or death' which was probably a little radical and something they might regret a few hours later.

The race started and we were off. Well ,almost, I jogged to the start line was the field was too dense to go any faster. Leaving the stadium was just as bad and the roads beyond were no better. I was disappointed as the start was so difficult and I spent the next 3 kilometres cursing the organisers for their route choice. In retrospect, it wasn't as bad as I felt and my split for the first 5 kilometres were as follows:

4:20, 3:56, 4:00, 3:58, 3:51

The route had come through the first park, Vondelpark, and was now heading down to complete the first small loop before doubling back on ourselves and heading back out to towards the east of the city.

I saw Laurence cheering me on at this point with Stéphanie. I had been looking for her earlier at the spot where we had arranged for her to stay so I was a little surprised (and slightly annoyed admittedly) when she shouted out. It must have been at this point that I overtook Bruno too although I never actually saw him and was disappointed not to have met him all day :)

Bruno in white, while I head off around the bend in red!

I settled into a rhythm now at around 4:00/km. I wondered if it wasn't slightly fast given my preparation but I thought that I was breathing easily enough and I felt relaxed so I just went with this. My legs were tying up slightly: every now and then I had a problem with my right knee blocking, causing me to limp for a few strides; and my calf muscles felt tight too but nothing too painful. I was still passing other runners regularly and happy with the situation and it was only towards 15km that I started to feel some tiredness creeping in.

3:59, 3:56, 3:55, 3:59, 3:57, 3:56, 3:51, 3:59, 3:56, 3:47

This 15th kilometre was too fast as the Garmin played up when we went underneath the ring road. It's a good job that I didn't see this one as I would have scared myself but I watched the timing block that the organisers had put at every 5km interval and this showed 1:00:24 and with the 20 seconds it took me to cross the start line, I knew that I was running a 15km/h average pace and on track to compete with my time in Florence.

We were heading down the canal now and the wind was slightly behind us. I remember wondering what it was going to be like on the other side when we had to run back into it. I'd deal with that problem when it happened. I was focused on staying with a couple of runners at this point, firstly a female runner (Jenny Knass a British female elite athlete) and an Israeli (Yossi Elia). The Israeli looked the strongest and I tried to stay with him and the small group that he was with. We turned at the bottom of the canal and headed back into the wind which wasn't as bad as I'd feared. I was able to hide behind some of the bigger runners and avoid the worst of it. I was beginning to tire seriously now though and I was focused on passing each 5km marker at my 15km/h pace. I went through the half marathon in 1:24:49, faster than my half marathon at the Great North Run a month ago, which pleased me no end. Now I only had to finish the race and preferably under 3h00.

The 15 - 25km actually went relatively well and despite the fact that I knew I was tiring and slowing, my lap times were fairly steady.

 4:01, 4:03, 4:00, 4:00, 3:59, 4:04, 3:56, 4:00, 3:59, 4:01

From this point in, it was simply a case of grinning and bearing it. I let Yossi go as he accelerated from this point to finish in 2:47 and Jenny dropped off the pace slightly. I was on my own now and running with a couple of English runners. Laurence and Stéphanie were at the 30km mark and that was a real boost as they cheered me on while I went past the electronic time board in 2:00:57 so an effective 2:00:37 in real time. I was almost a minute down on my Florence time now and this would be how it would stay until the end. I was calculating how much slower I could go and still make it under 3h00 but since this seemed easy I then recalculated to see the pace necessary to go under 2h55. I could afford to drop 30 seconds per kilometre and still make it so I relaxed and just maintained my pace. I looked at the Garmin and I was still running under 4:10/km so I knew that I wasn't suffering too badly. The mental arithmetic was still working too so I wasn't in too bad shape.

4:01, 4:11, 3:58, 4:01, 4:02, 4:06, 4:07, 4:11, 4:09, 4:08

At 35km we headed back westward towards the finish and the wind was behind us now. This was a refreshing change and it helped over these last few kilometres. I was eating a chunk of Ritter Sport every 5km and washing this down with water since I forgot all of my almond bars and sugar tablets in my bag that morning at the hotel. Idiot! They worked well though if only a little hard to swallow while running.

4:09, 4:04, 4:06, 4:10, 4:11, 4:09, 4:08 and 3:51 to the finish.

We ran back through Vondelpark and it was then only 2km to the stadium and the end. I counted down the kilometres as it was hurting now. My right foot had been hurting for a while under the sole of my foot just before my toes. It was getting worse and I wanted to stop. I entered the stadium and as I rounded the final bend a Belgian caught up with me and grabbed my hand so that we could cross the line together. Since I hadn't seen him in the race up until now, I found this rather peculiar but he was Belgian so that probably explains matters.

I crossed the finish line in 2:51:15 in 192 place out of 10 144 finishers.

Result James Highnam

Pleased with this time as, despite the comparative lack of marathon preparation, I was still able to pull off my second fastest marathon ever showing my improvement in form of late. Oh and by the way, Jenny came in almost exactly a minute later in 2:52:11.

Katia and François came in next, closely followed by Sandra, in 3:24:22 and 3:24:59, both smashing their PBs by 5 minutes and posting some excellent times whilst finishing in 14th and 15th place in their category. Pascal followed closely in 3:28:55 suffering from his achilles and lack of specific preparation.

So a good, flat and fast course only to be let down by a lousy organisation that could do a lot better. We'll definitely have to try Berlin next year.