Training was good and I am feeling myself well-prepared. I am really curious now and I am looking forward to it.

If you are in the city on that day and don’t know what to do with your time, feel free to support me at the track – you will recognize me easily :)

(and «Good Luck» to all of you who are also participating!)

Then I continued my run and struggled through the next five kilometers. In the meantime dark clouds were gathering. I hoped for a little cooling. I ran up a little hill and when I arrived on the top, the clouds had came closer. It was still bright behind me and together with the gloomy sky in front of me it gave a strange light. Absolutely impressive. If an UFO  had landed, I would not have been surprised.

On the horizont I could see a gray wall of rain. High wind came up. There was a tension in the air and it was only a question of time when it would start raining. I switched off my iPod; I wanted to be one with the nature, the rain and the wind. Then I felt the first drops and I raised my arms. It was a relief. Soon the rain whipped across the field and hit me like pinholes. Within a few minutes I got soaked to the skin. Puddles didn’t bother me, because I had puddles in my shoes. I could even have wet myself and nobody would have ever remarked it.

Suddenly it was over, the birds flew again and nothing but the wet ground and of course my wet clothes reminded of the short but heavy shower. Later it started raining again, but who cares.. you can not get wetter than wet.

After breakfast I went to the car and yippie, there was only snow on the windscreen and no ice. Hence I could go to work without scratching! The song on the radio must have told the truth!

But inside the car the reality caught up with me.. the tank was empty and I had to drive to the gas station. I hate nothing  more than driving there in the morning because that means a detour. At the gas pump I remembered that due to an error in the central locking system the doors and also the gas cap don’t function properly. I couldn’t open it and so I quit fueling and went back home to catch my husband. Actually I intended to ride with him but as if by magic the central locking system was working now.

Back at the gas station all pumps were occupied. I chose one and the next problem occured. The woman in front of me couldn’t restart her car. Well, I drove backwards to the adjacent pump. While I was busy the woman asked me if I could help her to push away the car. Of course. When I was finished with refueling I walked around the pump, slipped on a snow rest and fell hard on my side. Ouch. The woman was a bit concerned but I bobbed up and helped her with the car.

When I finally arrived at work I had my cheerfulness back and fortunately the rest of the day spared me more surprises.

It’s done. I ran my first marathon and it is hard to describe how I feel now. I am proud of myself, I even like the pain in my legs and I know it wasn’t my last marathon!
It was such a great day. The conditions were just perfect.. around 10°C, sunny with a blue sky in the beginning, a little bit cloudy in the end, and the most important fact: no wind!
Start was in the Olympic Stadium. Me among 6900 other runners. There was a little loop through the city first and then through the Vondelpark back to the Stadionplein. From then on we ran out of the city limits along the Amstel where beautiful houses could be admired. Back through a boring industry area the last 12 km led through Amsterdam again, passing the Heineken brewery and the Rijksmuseum, back to the Olympic Stadium.

My tactic was just to run and watch the pulse and to avoid to be too fast in the beginning. And it seems that everything fell into place!

I wanted to finish the run under 4:30 h.
4:20 h would have made me a pretty happy girl. But that I reached the finish line after 4:12:15 h
I didn’t dare to dream. Wow.

I’ve put my data on sportics. If you like to see more details please click here.

I want to say “thank you” to my friends and family who supported me all the time, at home or even at the track; who believed in me and gave me strength and confidence. And a special “thank you” to my husband on whom I always could count on, the one who cooked pasta for me and had to spend a lot of hours without me!!
Danke schön.

Unbelievable.. the 12 weeks have gone so fast. Training was mostly nice and besides a break caused by an irritation at my right ankle everything went well. Also the weather was fine almost every time I was on the track. I could run with my short pants until last week..

I achieved good results on a 10 km run and a half marathon and I could beat my personal records in both competitions.

By now, as my tweet already says, everything is packed. OMG! I’m so excited. This will be my first marathon. So there is no personal record so far and my aim is just to finish the 42,195 km.

The first part of the course was quite good, diversified and the weather conditions were just perfect. The second part led through open fields and this was so boring.

Furthermore the sun came out and running got more and more exhausting.

But after 21,1 km everything was forgotten because yes!! I could reach my target and finished with a time of 1:53:52.

My training started today (umm, officially yesterday.. with a day off :-)) and I’m pretty curious how my shape will improve.

Oh, and did I mention what all of this is about? I’m going to run my first full marathon on October 18 in Amsterdam.

[youtube 9IHZEb1HpgY]