Sneek Marathon 2015

Have you ever run a marathon purely for the fun? No time stress, no goals...just run and enjoy every km of this beautiful 42,195m marathon called Sneek Marathon.

What is so special about Sneek Marathon?
Sneek marathon 2015 is the second edition of the evening marathon which took place on the longest day of the year which was on June 20st. The longest day because the sun disappears around 22:30. Since the start is at 19:00 basically you don't need any light while running if you are planning to finish within the 3.30 hours.

This year marathon was on Saturday 20th of June. On a beautiful saturday I headed with my hubby to Sneek where we got to spend the night at Stadsherberg hotel a few min walking distance from the start. We stayed there with Wolf Family, Ruigendijk Family and Sander.

Rotterdam marathon 2015

This is my first Rotterdam marathon. I heard so many positive feedbacks of how amazing is to Run in Rotterdam. I signed up for the race within the first minutes after the registration was open and booked a hotel together with some firends

My last few weeks of training after Utrecht marathon felt good but somehow my right calf was annoying me after every training. With some foam rolling I kept going with my training without taking the good time to recover.
6 days  before Rotterdam marathon I run De loop van de haar a fast 10 km and I finished on the podium.

My goal for Rotterdam marathon is to run a personal best and that is a sub3hours6min. Ruben my running mate, agreed to pace me to a PR. Ruben have paced me in the past so I am used to his way of pacing, somehow he knows when I need to slow down or go faster and that make him a perfect pacer for me. He sets the pace and I follow! How simple is that! ( not really :) ).

One day before the race I went on my last run to end up coming home with tears because of a severe pain in my calf. I honestly knew at that moment that Rotterdam marathon won't be a smooth run.
I went to the expo picked my startnumber and got my foot/calf tapped, hopping It will relieve the pain.

In the evening we had dinner at the Hilton and I got the pleasure to be surrounded with all the elite runners! It gave me extra motivation and made me more excited for the race. Of course I Had to take a picture with the trio sisters from Iceland.

Utrecht Marathon 2015

Since Chicago Marathon back in October, I haven't found the peace and the time to keep up with my blog. After Chicago marathon I had a pneumonia and I was not feeling fit until the begining of this year.
Starting this year with the goal to run Rotterdam marathon on April 12th under the sub 3 hours. I knew that was a very ambitious goal, Between cold winter, work, family and kids, it left me with too little energy to focus seriously on that goal. At the begining of the Year I had such a hard time to step out of the door to go on a run after I have layed my kids in bed. With a little bit of disipline I still made it oud there but I could feel that it is no more fun especially when it comes to Intervals training. /
I sat down with my trainer and decided to exclude those short intervals from my training...At that moment I started enjoying running again. It is true you don't get faster without Interval training and hard work but you have to keep your eyes on what is the most important for you, is it running fast without pleasure or enjoying every run and speed will eventually come?
I chose to go for the 2nd option, sub3 for Rotterdam is not my goal anymore, I am far from that level but eventually one day this goal will be reached.