Amsterdam in 2022

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I woke up at two in the morning. Obviously I couldn't try to go back to sleep, because I might miss the wake-up time for the marathon.

Just before seven in the morning I went down to have breakfast, I thought it would be crowded with runners, it was even quite empty.

I didn't eat much, so I wouldn't be too heavy for the race.

I left at eight in the morning and walked to the nearest subway station:

Here is the entrance to Vijzelgracht station:

I struggled with this machine to buy my ticket, I couldn't make it...

Then three Italians arrived, bought their tickets and helped me buy mine.

When I went down the stairs, the train was already there, it left before I arrived:

I was alone at the station:

I was going to go only three stations, until the final one, called Zuid:

The Zuid station is off the ground:

The transfer train was overcrowded with athletes:

Fortunately, we only had one station to go...

Getting to the stadium was easy, I just had to follow the whole herd that went there, but at the stadium it was difficult to find my specific entrance (green), I had to walk around almost a quarter of the stadium perimeter...

Citius, Altius, Fortius:

First view inside the stadium:

I entered my corral at two minutes before nine, the scheduled departure time. Well, the elite started, we watched on the big screen:

It wasn't until 9:25 am that we started slowly heading towards the match:

I passed the starting line after 9:30 in the morning...

The Amsterdam marathon has several problems, some small, some big. For me, the worst problem was that pretty much all the time we were surrounded by other people. It's normal in a marathon, the first kilometer or even the first two to be a little complicated because of the crowds, but after that the spaces open up and we can evolve more freely. That doesn't happen in Amsterdam, we're surrounded by people all the time, we can't develop our rhythm.

In the beginning it's even worse, we're completely surrounded, and there's a lot of bumping, pushing and stuff like that.

Another less important problem is that we get the sun on our face practically all the time, very annoying.

The streets have speed bumps and small posts along the way. If we are not paying attention, it can cause an accident.

Several of the streets are narrow, making overtaking difficult.

Well, but I still managed to do a more or less decent race, at a good pace.

Around km 14 I reached the 4h pacers, I stayed with them for the next ten miles.

There were people playing with these water jets in the river, it was interesting to see:

Later on I checked the price of one of these contraptions: between five and seven thousand dollars! You've got to be rich...

While I was running, my wife took a boat trip through the canals of Amsterdam:

She said it was very interesting.

Until km 30 I was doing well, but then my legs couldn't take the pace anymore, I had to start walking a bit. But I still got to the end, I was very happy:

Here I am with my medal:

I finished the race in 4:19:19, a very respectable time considering I had run a marathon a week ago.

Men with stilts at the end of the race:

I decided to walk back to the room:

It was funny to see a bunch of runners stopping at pubs to buy a beer. I even considered the idea, but gave up, I wanted to get to the apartment soon.

When I got to the room Rose took a picture to mark my big achievement:

We had champagne to celebrate:

Delicious!