Sunday morning run

Hi all, welcome back to my running blog!

April 2024 to April 2025 has been a buzy running year for me - in which I ran:

• NN Marathon Rotterdam 2024
• TCS Amsterdam Marathon 2024
• Bear Sports COAST MARATHON NATIONAAL PARK HOLLANDSE DUINEN 2025
• NN Marathon Rotterdam 2025
• Unofficial marathon to break my old PR and setting a new PR at 3:20:22

While the last run was not an official race - it did feel great especially as I hit the wall 11 days earlier in Rotterdam.

I used the Pfitzinger advanced marathon book as a basis for my schedules. For Amsterdam I fully followed the easiest schedule (up to 89 km / week) , but learned that a small adjustment improved the schedules a lot! I started to remove complete rest days and switched them with recovery runs (slow steady pace, short distance runs). The effect was very positive - I seemed to be ready all the time and my heartrate lowered substancial also during harder efforts.

After my succesful run on thursday, I did a shorter run today in order to feel how the recovery is going.

While I felt good mentally and physicially I also did a body scan while running and noticed a slight inbalance in the tension on my hamstrings. Which is no issue but a clear sign to prioritize recovery and incorporate more stretching in my routine!

So what is next?
In november I will run a smaller marathon (Spijkenisse) where I will act as a pacer for two friends allowing them to break 4h for the first time.

Looking forward I will be focussing on three goals:

1. Running a few trail marathons (most likely another run at the Coast marathon in februari)
2. Running a few international marathons so far I am considering (Jungfrau mountain marathon in Swizz, iceland vulcano run - if I can get a race only ticket - , lagos city marathon and Maratón CAF Caracas) most of these runs are in the same period so realisticly it will take some time to run them all ;) but I love having clear targets to work towards!
3. Finally I want to break 3h for a full marathon, with should be achievable if I add some more weekly kilometers and lose some weight :) most likely I will attempt in 2027 in either Amsterdam or Berlin as they count as Boston qualifiers and are very flat tracks.

So a lot to look forward to!

Happy running!!