We settled in Amsterdam and found ourselves a lovely apartment right next to the Olympic Stadium (and conveniently located at the start and finish of the Amsterdam marathon). Daniel's joined the local athletics club Phanos, and trains in the stadium two times a week. We've also become aunt and uncle to Jinte!

One of our main reasons to want to settle somewhere more permanently is because we felt it would help us have a better (running) routine. This has certainly been the case. Not having to travel, or spending energy figuring out where to go next, or even familiarising yourself with new running routes all the time has allowed us to have more focus. It has brought a sense of peace to our life which we're really enjoying at the moment. The good thing is that we're still remote, so we're still able to pack our bags and hop on a plane — 15 min from here — whenever we feel like it!

So, what have we been up to running wise? We're conveniently located between Amsterdamse Bos (forest), the running track, and Vondelpark — so that's where most of our training has taken place. We generally run about 5 times a week, including a 20+ km run on Saturday and a rest day on Sunday. We've also gone to Parkrun a handful of times, which is taking place every Saturday morning in Amsterdamse Bos.

Our training has mostly been with the 2023 Amsterdam marathon in mind. But we've also started doing more races in the meantime! This is actually new for me, as I'd only ever done the Amsterdam half marathon twice. The racing has been a great way to push myself and test my abilities, and see that the training is actually paying off. So without further ado, the races we've done in 2023:

Lentemarathon Amstelveen (half)

We really enjoyed this race, perhaps because we both PB'd. But probably more so because it's quite a low key race in a town 10 minutes cycling from here, with half of the course passing through the forest we normally run. We will definitely be back next year!

Leiden half marathon

The Leiden half felt very, very hard. Neither of us actually felt great during the run, maybe because it was much hotter than it had been up until that point. Despite that, I still took almost a minute off my fastest time — possibly thanks to the new carbon plated shoes I got from Daniel as a birthday present! It was a lot of fun though because I had some other family members running as well, and afterwards we all got together to celebrate our accomplishments.

I was pulled aside after the race for an interview for some local news channel. My brain was obviously fried so it wasn't the best one, but fun to see in hindsight nonetheless.

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Midzomernachtcross

My very first non-half marathon race: a 10km distance. My reference point was to be somewhere between my 5km and half marathon PB, so I was quite interested to see how fast I could go and what pace I should settle at. The race was in the evening — an advantage to me because I always run better later in the day. It was also familiar terrain: the Amsterdamse Bos, our training ground. Both Daniel and I PB'd — his Phanos training paid off as he ran a 36:54 at an incredible pace of 3:41 min/km.

I was careful not to let myself get carried away and go off too fast at the beginning, despite everyone around me passing me by. After a kilometre or two, I started following a guy who was going at a steady pace of 4:17, which felt good. After 5km, I passed him by and started pacing him instead. We pretty much ran the entire race together, until I encouraged him to do a final sprint at the end. I wish I'd listened to my own advice as I might have ended up running sub 42, but overall it was a really good race during which I felt strong and surprised myself with my time. It is time to do a 5km race now, because I can definitely improve on that time!

And that's it so far.

As the post title suggests this is only part 1, because we're about half way through the year and have a couple more races lines up already. Stay tuned!