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The Amsterdam marathon, 21 October 2007

It is well known that the Marathon “reduces big people to very small people” by the long wear and tear, but the reverse may also happen. Many good marathon runners are small people.

After 5 weekly half-marathons in the last 6 weeks before the race, I was ready for my first 32 km, according to a training schedule. So why not a bit more, 42.195 km?

Talk of the town

Everybody talks about it but few do it, “the marathon” or 42.195 km. After doing a few half marathon's with a personal best of 1 h 27 m and 50 s, I felt like trying it.

As a mountain trekker, used to carry 15 kg for up to 7 hours a day net walking time, running over 3 hours seemed easy, also as the elevation was at sea level. I am good walker at 5000-6000 m altitude so with an effort level of around 80 to 85% for the first 30 km, it should be possible.

Past 30 km anything could happen, the biggest risks are muscle cramps in the lower legs or blisters. The effort seemed similar to climbing a mountain which is normally a 7-8 hours exhausting effort which I do once a year.

Unfortunately I spread the news to almost everybody, so the social pressure was enourmous to complete it, no matter what time. A few fans were even waiting at the finish with a camera.

Training

A marathon is known to be very hard between 30 and 42 km so you need to train long hours to feel comfortable at the first 25 to 30 km. In the preparation weeks you do what is called “km machen” or “build up kilometers”.

On the Internet I found a reasonable 18 week training schedule at http://www.marathontraining.com. My schedule for the 21 October Amsterdam marathon should have been as follows:

In the first 8 weeks you build up your long distance capability to 32 km. Only once a week you do a long run.

The next 6 weeks you try a 34 and a 36.5 km distance once. In the last 4 weeks you lower the distance, focussing on 16 to 22.5 km distances.

Each week you run a total between 32 and 62.5 km, spread over 4 or 5 running days.

A dilemma is how to run during the training runs: slow, normal pace or fast, with a short or long pace. Fast tend to inflict injuries, slow may not give you any build up. My normal cruising speed is 14.1 km per hour at a heart rate of 160 and a 10 km run would take 42 minutes and 30 seconds. At this speed a half marathon would take 1 hour and 30 seconds.

A rolling, short pace where you do not move your upper body by keeping your centre of gravity at the same height, is said to be most energy efficient. A long pace, more common for fast runners, is hard on the lower muscles and Achilles tendons.

As a warning, this is a lot of work, a bit like trying to improve your golf handicap from 25 to 16. Differences are: no cigars on the course, a high wear and tear on the rolling parts of your body, lots of blisters and constant craving for food. A typical 10 km run burns 400-500 kcal (when your weight is 68 kg) and when running 50 km a week you have to eat around 300 to 450 kcal extra on average every day or 5 bananas. Eating bananas works well, especially before and after a 21 km run.

Another thing you may notice is that you need new running shoes with an extra half size. When running for more than 1 hour, your feet start to swell and when using your normal size, the toes start to rub at the liner. It took me a while to realize that the blood under my toe nails, dead skin and blisters are not a normal phenomenon, in fact not until after the marathon.

My schedule

I did three or four short runs (3, 5 or 10 km) per week in the first 8 weeks as part of a summer training. After doing a 10 km in 39m40s and a slow half marathon in 1h33m, I started to realize that perhaps I could do the ultimate distance, a full marathon. Still 5 weeks to go.

I picked up the marathon training schedule in week 13 on September 16^th, did the equivalent of the 10 mile Dam to Dam run on that day in 1h8m and skipped the 30 plus km runs, never doing more than 21 km. I did run between 40 and 50 km every week.

My assumption was that I could do 32 km after 5 weekly half-marathons and perhaps even a bit more, the ultimate 42.195 km..

Two weeks before the race, my right calf muscles and tendons were very sour after running a half marathon at cruising speed, in 1 h 29 m. I recovered by doing a very slow half marathon run the next weekend, only one week before the race, in 1 h 37 minutes. The trick was to take smaller steps and rely on the upper leg muscles, the main mountain trekking muscles, to do the work and avoid the calf muscles, the common elephant style used by slow runners. After this run I did not have sour muscles, for the first time in 5 weeks, so this would be a technique to avoid muscle cramps at long distances.

The Race

On entering the stadium my biggest worry was yet another pee stop. Doing this during the race would cost a minute. I met a mountain climbing friend, Ralf, in the assigned start area with an expected finishing time between 3 h and 3h30m. His best time ever was 3h10 m. He would do 3 hour 5 m and 59 s today, a new personal best.

The weather was perfect and the stadium was warm by the morning sun, with an air temperature of around 12 degrees Celsius. Single shirt weather. I took off my inner singlet and planned to dump it along the way in a convenient spot where I could get it back..

At 10.30 h we left. The start line was at a few 100 m distance and we passed it after one minute, the difference between net and gross time. We started with a slow half round on the athletics course as it was crowded.

We left the stadium cheered by at least 10000 spectators. “Morituri Te Salutant” (Those Who Are About To Die Salute You), flashed through my head. The next thought was a title of a book by Bruce Chatwin: “What am I doing here?”.

The first 5 kms were slow as it was difficult to run at your own speed. The first 1.5 km the route had a single lane only and not until past the Beethovenstraat it finally widened to two lanes but it was still busy. I lost a minute on the first 5 km. The 5 km stop was put to far and the 10 km should have been further, I was told after the race.

At the 5 km stop I took a quick sip of water but did not swallow it correctly and started coughing. Many people stopped and walked while drinking water or Gatorade.

At the 10 km point I stopped as well and finished my 0.15 liter of Gatorade. I would repeat this at every 5 km stops to get sufficient fluids. Here I got a big splash of Gatorade on my legs but I did not notice it alter on, must have seated it off.

At a firestation at 2.5 km I dumped the singlet within a bush while three people were wathing. It was gone after the race, poor sports these Dutchmen or do they simply not understnd?

Starting at the 20 km stops, there were also pieces of banana.

Half marathon crossing

The half marathon crossing point at the Amstel River I reached in a disappointing 1 h 38 m and 59 s. I was aiming for 1 h 33 m. Too bad, but I was trying to run at the lowest energy, always following groups op runners, and never running ahead. I would have to take over more runners but didn't for a very good reason.

At the half marathon crossing point I started to realize that finishing was more important than a good time. My original target time of 3 hours and 10 minutes was probably overambitious. Most of my fans will have no idea how fast you need to run to finish in the 3 h 25 m to 3 h 10 m range and how much the difference in effort level is. Any finishing time below four hours would sound very good.

The 20 to 25 km along the Amstel River were hard. We had a moderate head wind and were running on a narrow, rough bicycle path that really needed a new tarmac surface. Here I lost a minute and many runners were in pain, trying to minimize the effort by running behind somebody. I took the lead a few times as the pace was slow. Two or three runners already dropped out, one was on the back of bicycle, unable to walk.

At the 25 km I made a long stop, at least 40 seconds, ate again had two pieces of banana and finished a full cup of lemon Gatorade. I saw a girl disappearing in the distance now 150 meters ahead of me after running together before the stop.

At 28 km and going into a strong head wind I was running behind two old, slightly overweight Dutch men, who knew each other. One said he was very tired and would make a long stop at the drinking post of 30 km. So would I, I though, being the same age.

30 km crossing

Past the 30 km drinking post, things were rough and lonely. Amsterdam East isn't a nice area to run. With so few spectators along the dark streets and as I was mostly running by myself, it felt like a ghost town. I passed around 10 runners that were walking, “slow down and go for finishing” went through my mind. Still 8-9 km to go, only 45 minutes running or two hours walking in great pains. Once you stop running, the muscles stiffen up and you are immobile.

At 34 km I passed the only handicapped person of the race, walking on long wooden crutches sticking out for 1.5 meters on each side. A strange site. Must be some sort of attraction, always participating. He was doing around 4 km per hour so he probably took a short cut and started earlier.

35 km crossing

I was dying for the 35 km drinking post as my leg muscles were getting very sore. Here I must have stopped for a minute, eating banana (which was pointless, should have used a power drink) and drinking another full cup of Lemon Gatorade. I started running again, speeding up very slowly as my calfs were already very stiff. I clearly wasn't ready to run more than 35 km today.

I also noticed that my left toe was a bit hurting. I taped it before the run and thought the tape must have shifted.

The 35 to 40 km stretch was a killing field. I must have past at least 50 people walking in pain on a single km. Then we hit the Wibautstraat tunnel, 7 meters down, directly followed by the steep Amstel bridge, 7 plus 10 meters up in total. About 30% of the runners walked the last meters to the top of the bridge and here they got another surprise, going down steeply to the Stadhouderskade, just like running down a hill, very hard on your legs.

40 km crossing in the Vondelpark

I asked some friends to cheer me up on entering the Vondelpark but I only briefly looked if they were there. I had other worries.

I passed several runners but was also passed by others, who were clearly speeding up. Some were looking at their watches, going for a personal record. Today Amsterdam had perfect running conditions.

At the exit of the park pictures were taken by the Marathon Organization, see below.

Exit of the Vondelpark, last 1.5 km. Tired faces looking into oblivion.

Again I was dying for drinks and yes, there was still a post at 40.5 km. I again stopped for 30 seconds. I was the only one who stopped here, everybody else grapped a cup, took a single sip while running and threw out the cup. The street was covered in cups, water and Gatorade so a bit slippery.

Even on the last 1.5 km things could happen, so I kept my pace slow, not knowing if there would be “life after a marathon”.

The finish.

The last 1.5 km were relatively easy as I knew I would finish. I even took a sprint at the last 200 meter tin the Olympic Stadion on the very nice and very soft athletics course, trying to stay below 3 h and 27 m. Two weeks later somebody of my power yoga class, saw me finishing and gave me a compliment. I did not look very tired on finishing, he said.

Net time (Start to Finish) 3 hours 27 minutes and 7 seconds, average gross speed 12.17 km per hour. Discounting two minutes for the first half, and two for the second half due to stopping for drinks or delays, average net speed was 12.47 km per hour.

First half 13.05 km per hour, second half 11.94 km per hour.

Entrance of the Olympic stadion, 200 m from the finish. Pictures by Arno. 15923 is a V30 participant (woman 30-35).

Another 500 meters

At the finish we got a medal and were covered in a plastic sheet against the cold weather. I was only 12 degrees Celsius. Walking 500 m to the bicycle were the hardest as the leg muscles stiffened up completely. I stopped at the drinks, ate some banana and had soup.

Once I reached my bicycle I was fine, cycling felt good. I notice a bit of blood on my left foot [1] , visible on the shoe outside and sock, and this was a big blister. So far so good, I thought.

Taking off the socks at home revealed several blisters on the outer toes, not a pretty sight [left foot] [right foot], resembling frost bite.

The Shuntoo heart rate monitor worked fine and helped me during the run but created a bruise at the chest.

Life after the marathon

Sunday and Monday were blister treatment days, puncturing about seven blisters every few hours. My right foot toe-nail was in bad shape and eventually came off, and the middle right foot toe-nail painfull, just hanging on.

Monday morning I couldn't walk but slowly recovered in the afternoon. At night I went to a concert in the Amsterdam Concert Hall. Here, going down the stair was nearly impossible and my feet got very warm during the concert.

On Tuesday I spent half an hour treating blisters, clipping the dead skin with scissors. The skin damage on my toes resembled a light frostbite. The right-foot toe nail fell off.

On Wednesday I still couldn't walk down the stairs without pain. Cramps lasted for 5 says and my first 2 km run was a week later when I regained full energy.

It seems that it takes around two weeks to recover, my first full run of 3 km at a good speed without any cramps was not until 11 days after the marathon.

Score Amsterdam Marathon 2007, personal position is 1386 out of 6527 finishing.

Personal details Amsterdam Marathon 2007. Totaal Plaats above is based on gross finishing time, final net finish rank is 1386 out of 6527 finishing, see below. Click on picture for full view.

Personal details Amsterdam Marathon 2007.

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