Amsterdam Marathon 16th Oct 2022

Yeah, booked in. Flying out on the Saturday and back Monday. It'll be my first marathon since Dublin 2016 and I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in to the training. I chose it for the flat course and the fact that it dovetails pretty well with Dublin meaning that I can hopefully do some training with clubmates who are targeting that.

Same here, flying out Sat and back Monday. Also running DCM should that should be interesting. Got accommodation about 3km away from the stadium but looked into hiring a bike so it should be all grand on the day.

Does anyone know if you can get through flight security with gels? Just realised I didn't book a checkin bag but was going to bring my own gels. Not a huge deal if I can't - I'll pick some up at the expo I imagine.

Just checked and yeah should be grand as long as they're under 100ml and in a clear bag.

Did this in 2019 and my main piece of advice is to get into the stadium with plenty of time. I left it until about 15 minutes before (as need 237 pees before starting any race) and there was a huge jam to get in. I went to the very right-hand side and got in with seconds to spare, but hundreds behind me missed the start.

There are plenty of toilets inside the stadium on the pitch so its not an issue.

First 1 to 2 km are very congested and I was walking on a couple of occassions.

fantastic race

Snuck a look at the weather, I know it's pretty much useless info this far out but anyway.....currently looking ideal for a temp point of view with ~50% chance of showers. Could be worse.

You know, I'd say you must be correct normally but in this case I decided to not even look at or trust the treadmill readout and bought a Zwift pod instead. Every now and then I'd check the treadmill's read out to compare to what Zwift was telling me and invariably it was 1 - 1.5 kmph faster than the Zwift pod, so that gave me even more encouragement - Maybe I was hitting paces at even faster speeds than I needed!

People online tell you to put the treadmill at 1% incline to best mimic road running but again I didn't trust it. I got out a spirit level and confirmed it was flat then set it to a constant 2% incline for all runs. Hit all paces for the plan without issue (not saying it was easy, some days after long runs I was absolutely wrecked) so I was confident.

The one main thing I've found since getting back to road running is the wind, it's obviously one of the big differences between outdoor vs treadmill running but wow!, it utterly and completely wrecked my pace and energy levels. It was so disheartening to be hitting paces spot-on and then going outdoors and missing them by 30 seconds +. I run mainly on the coast cause it's so flat but it's also pretty much always windy. So who knows, perhaps I've been beating myself up based on running into hard winds all the time but in any case, I've adjusted half my plan accordingly so 3:10 it is.

I'm heading over on Saturday morning as well, was planning on either heading to the expo directly or to the apartment and then back to the expo to get a better idea of the lay of the land for race day.

I was there last year for the half. The trains and trams are brilliant and really easy. I can’t remember what we did about tickets but so easy hopping on and off and going to the stadium was no problem.

Yeah, got mine as well. Getting real now. Installed the app as well, it's actually a pretty good source of info.

God I hope not. I will only believe the day before's forecast. Somewhat wet is ok I suppose, as long as we've no wind it might be tolerable.

I keep checking the weather - seems that rain on the day is inevitable - but - it appears to be in the afternoon on most forecasts. It's too early to tell in any case. Friday / Saturday is the day we'll really know.