Mizuno Amsterdam Half Marathon

Grantham Running Club’s Gav Meadows took part in the Amsterdam Half Marathon on Sunday 21st October. The race started at 1.20pm local time as the marathon takes place at 9.30am on the same day. The event also offers an 8km race. Starting close to the Olympic Stadium, the half marathon course takes in sights including the Tropenmuseum, the old Heineken brewery (now the Heineken Experience), the Rijksmuseum & Vondelpark before finishing inside the Olympic Stadium itself. Conditions on the day were perfect for running with very little wind & temperatures around 15 degrees celsius. The course is very flat & ideal for running fast times.

Having run the marathon in 2017, Gav opted for a slightly less demanding trip this year. Going into the race he was hoping for a time somewhere around the 90 minute mark having improved his fitness with a good 6 weeks of training following a poor performance at the Newton’s Fraction Half Marathon. He said ‘I knew that a personal best was unlikely based on recent form but training had gone well so I was hoping for a respectable performance to build on going into marathon training for 2019.’

Gav started strongly & averaged around 6:45 per mile for the first 6.5 miles. However, he wasn’t quite able to maintain this pace & his average crept over 7:00 per mile for the second half of the race. He said ‘I adopted my usual strategy for a flat race - go for broke from mile 1 & hope I can maintain the pace. I just wasn’t quite fit enough to do it on this occasion.’ As Gav came into the stadium he knew that a sub 90 minute time was out of reach. However, he still finished in a very respectable 1:31:40 averaging just under 7 minutes per mile for the whole race.

He said ‘I’m quite content with this performance. It was neither good or bad - somewhere in the middle. I have to be fairly happy given my last performance over this distance. If nothing else, it at least indicates some kind of return to form & fitness.’ He added ‘It was nice to do a slightly shorter race abroad & be able to relax a little more. Being a spectator for the marathon in the morning was a fantastic experience & seeing the elites in action up close was truly awe inspiring.’