Adventures of a marathon girl

Hi y'all, I promised you a couple of lists for you to enjoy. You might wanna use them to inspire Santa to get you the gift you want for christmas or you could use this info to buy that runner on your list a good gift.  Today's list is about gadgets and more specifically the ones data related. Why? Because at one point or another each and every runner tends to wanna know their stats. Trust me on that one...we all do and those of you telling me that you don't are lying. Yep I just bluntly said that. So what gives gadget wise? On the wrist: XIAOMI MI 3 band What is it? It is an activity tracker. To get your stats you have to download the Mi fit app and sync your band with the app. This entire proces will take about 5 whole minutes of your precious time and literally a zombie can do it. It is that easy! The band can be worn in the pool and under the shower however it doesn't feature GPS so if you want to map your runs or rides this band is not for you. Why do you wan

Hi y'all December is almost here and that means party time and giftshopping for all kinds of gift related encounters this beautiful glittery icy cold and dark winter month has to offer. As you crawl under a blanket trying to figure out what to get that long distance female (oriented) runner on your list, don't fret..I'm here to help you out. I know I have done this before and I'll probably do one every year, just because new stuff keeps coming in every year and the latest and greatest should make it to this list. Unlike other years I will bring you this year's list in separate blog posts over the upcuming weeks. Expect me to feature: clothes, gear, gadgets, reads, (pre) race day food and recovery. Here we go: Let's start at the very beginning: underwear. Advice number one: do NOT shop bra's for a woman. And ladies learn this: shop your bra at a good store when your ladies are not average. Read between the lines here... in case you didn't get t

Hi y'all, I did it! I ran and finished the Amsterdam half marathon last Sunday. I dreaded the day and the actual finish line and I wanted the run to be over with at the same time. Twisted and complex as that might sound and yet the unreal really happened. I did it and I am proud of me. So....what was it like? Our coral started at 13:26 hrs in front of the olympic stadium. The weather was a little too summery for my taste but I was sooo nervous that I kind of blame part of the coral sweat on nerves. Trying to calm down I started talking to three fellow runners and learned about they're favorite runs. So fun to exchange cool runs and...as it turns out we live in the same city. How is that for fun!? Now I have run this particular half before but this time I feared I wasn't fit enough. I darted off, high fived my husband around the first 500m and than I was on my own. No more excuses just me and my absolute desire to run this one. It didn't take me long to get into

Hi y'all, Amsterdam half marathon is coming up quickly and I am just not ready. I have not done my usual over-the-top training but just the basics. That for starters makes me anxious. The pas few weeks have been hell on finding a good shoe and I haven't so both my feet have blood blisters needles to say that they hurt. Both of these arguments are excuses and they don't come close to how I have been feeling since we got back home last Monday. I have been working my ass off to just not stop and think about mom and everything but with Amsterdam coming up so are all the emotions that are part of that. Last time I crossed the finish line at the olympic stadium my parents were there to actually see me finish that full marathon. Now mom is dead and I am scared to cross the line. Like it's making that the real final step. And I'm angry, mostly with myself. Grieve got the better part of me and when I look in the mirror I see me just about 2 seizes bigger than I wanna be

Hi y'all, Remember the first of September? I did a thing...I signed up for the 50 MILE (not KM) month at I love to run. Just this past Sunday I hit that mark making it official: I DID IT & thus earned each and every viber of the medal that came with said challenge. Finishing the challenge soon spiraled into a full blown psychological mirror conversation on that spark, the one thing I need to get that feeling of wanting to run. And it is something like this: Picture a bunch of guys boasting on the tracks, having fun and there's just a little of that guys-like 'I-dare-you' going on. I will trade you the world to stand with guys like that before a run. I love a good fun-loving and totally competative run. The kind of rivalry that's fun to be around and that makes not winning a personal win because it made you all the faster for it. I like a run where someone won't let go of me and just keeps running next to me to make sure I try my hardest without giving in

Hi Y'all, Some runs are good, some are not just like days and people are I guess. Being raised a rebel with a country soul and a lot of love for all things considered freedom, I learned at a very young age that you don't ever ask ' why me?!' but you pull down your hat and scream 'TRY ME!'. The latter almost always being a challenge either to you or to the person having the nerve to cross you. Yesterday was a bad day. I had been working 20 hours over two of my days off and when I did start out on my run I immediatly felt it was a bad idea. Not just any bad idea but the mother of all bad ideas. My legs were so tired I started to sway one mile in, I felt dizzy and sick and right there and than I decided to call it quits. I hardly ever do that but this one was just me asking for a whole lot of problems. I was sad and angry. I couldn't even get a run in. When I got home I ate, took a shower and crashed on the couch under a blanket feeling absolutely exhaust

Hi y'all, Life as a runner is about a whole bunch of things and life as a runner somehow sometimes seems to be disconnected from your regular life, until your regular life starts to suffer from either running or not-running. How confusing this must be for non-runners and how completely normal this sounds to runners.What the juice is she on about? I'm talking about running and how life for a runner is about making choices to change for the better every single day. How so? change is not something that happens around you, it is not something you can force upon other people to create an easier path for yourself. Change is an active choice you make each and every day. If you want to be a nicer person: be one, if you want to lose weight: stop eating garbage, if you want to be a runner: start running, if you want to feel happy: smile, if you want to feel loved: start loving yourself. It is that simple. Change is about you committing to something even if nobody else seems to be wil

Hi y'all, Almost every kid at one point in it's life dreams about castles, knights, horses, lands, dressing up, ballrooms, kings and queens. Some kids grow up to actually become the person living in a castle however most of us mortals don't. Castles however hardly ever stop filling our hearts with somekind of magic and they still spark our imagination. It might be because you enjoy history and want to learn about a country and the people in it, it might be because you love landscaping and interior design, it might be because you simply love a great piece of architecture or maybe even all of the above. So when the change comes along to run around on castle grounds that are normally closed to the public, seeing an amazing palace up close, having a canon being fired at the start of your run and even receiving a medal that resembles a royal distinction would you decline that call? OFCOURSE NOT!!! Well I damn well made sure I was part of the fun and trust me when I say it wa

Hi y'all, Running through the seasons of your life you start to tap into the very depth of what your soul is made of. Running, as y'all know, has taught me so many things about myself and today me and the love of my life had a fun talk about what makes me love our new residence and why I am drawn to the outdoors especially now. When I'm out there, out anywhere and just get into the cadans of my feet tapping (sometimes just smashing or even slouching) the roads during just these days I somehow really feel my unruly and very wild and adventurous me roar and surface. The me that loves to scream against the rolling waves, that stands up on the paddles of her bike when all hell breaks lose and rain smashes my face. The me that feels alive right about this time of year. The me that wakes up and smells the turning of the season. It is here. It is coming. It is on it's way and it is calling on my very soul. The turning of a season somehow always makes me feel somet

Hi y'all, I know it's been a while and trust me I really do want to keep you updated on my life as a runner but as is, life intervenes and I find myself depleted when I come home. I have been struggling to keep running, partially due to the extreme heat and partially because my body is still overcoming the all of my moms death. I didn't stop entirely but I haven't been true to myself either. That is until yesterday when someone woke me up and unintentionally showed me that I can't let anyone clip my wings, steal my thunder, cut my curls and dull my sparkle. I was born to soar and nobody in this entire world has the right to enter my mind with their dirty feet. So after a horrible night of hardly any sleep, mulling over why the encounter that shook me, got to me so badly and I why I am still beyond furious I decided to go for a run. I hoped to get rid of some of the anger and find some clarity to see the beauty of life in the nature surrounding me. I couldn&#

Hi y'all, Y'all have been around long enough to know that my mom suffered from ALS and for the observant readers: that's right I'm writing in past tense. Her suffering came to an end on Monday june 18th 2018, ten days after she turned 70. She has left the disease and us in a beautiful and sereen moment with all of us standing by her side as she left us. The week that followed was unreal and weird and now...seven days after my mom's passing and her cremation I have woken up in my own house feeling  a bit out unworldly. Not sure what to do and therefore I turned to the one thing I do know....running. My body and mind have been struggling with the all of ALS and I no longer recognize me when I look at me. So I figured that I really do need to put all of the emotions in perspective and take time to heal but how do you do that? I feel like somehow I am not grieving the loss of my mom correctly. I am not overwhelmed with grieve, I am not lost and I fear that I come ac

Hi y'all, Keep it unreal and make it happen has been my go to catch phrase since the day I decided I was going to run that full marathon. For me that catch phrase has been more than just a motto, it has been my reminder, my pick me up, my kick in the butt and so much more. It has helped me through each and every time disbelief was visible in the face of people. You know the wordless kind with the raised eyebrow, sometimes audible even by added sighs or coughs to stress the effect. Self-doubt has been erredicated by this phrase and shushed to mere whispers entering and leaving my mind. But...this is by no means something that comes naturally and it isn't something you decide to think and than POOOF so it will be for ever and ever. Not by a long shot! My motto is like a mantra I have to repeat over and over again because the only person that can make the unreal happen is me and the only person that truely needs to belief that I am capable of whatever goal I set for myself.but

Hi y'all, When words are absolete and time moves on the thing that remains is love. My mom knows her time with us is running out and she knows when she wants to leave this earth. Now I know the controversy, political and religious believes about life and who's it is to take but it isn't relevant anymore. Nothing is. The only thing we want, oughta and need to do is sit by her side as she embarks on her last great journey taking her to a place she can't discuss with us. And that has proven to be far more difficult than I ever imagined it would be. Not because I'm scared, not because I'm choking on grieve, not because I'm awestruck by her courage, not because I'm mad that there still isn't an aswer to this asshole disease. Not because any of all that even though it is all there and I'm going through it all. It is unimaginably hard because of everything and everyone. The ones who are too scared to see her and therefore have stopped coming over co

Hi y'all, How on earth did we ever end up here? What happened and when did we turn a corner and started the part of our lives where saying goodbye to a live has become more frequent than welcoming a newborn baby into the world? When did we get to this stage? Did we blink? Forget to breathe? Did we miss our stop? Can someone please wake me up and tell me this is not my story, that I took the wrong train and that I should transfer quickly to my actual train that is still in happy ville. Life nowadays has taken a turn to nocturnal alley and it's dark. Not always as consuming as you would figure it must be but dark non-the-less. Life seems to be about trying to find whatever it is you need right now. Sometimes you need time, sometimes it is space and sometimes it is something to hold on to. Yesterday my dad found out that one of his brothers (who has been very sick for a while now) has decided to make the final journey come Wednesday and so today my father is saying goodbye

Hi y'all, Grieve is an unexplicable phenomenon and yet I feel the dire need to explain what is happening to me, to me. Does that make any sense at all? It's a little like trying to solve a problem while going over it and doing so out loud. For me running has literally always been my go-to thing and even now when sometimes anger, overwhelming pain and total exhaustion take over my life, body, mind and all that is me...even now I run. Not far, not long and definately not fast but I'm running. I need to feel alive, a little like me every now and again to just survive all of the fucking crap I am going through. Nobody ever told me losing a parent is so all consuming and that it makes complete and utter assholes out of everybody involved, so yes that does include myself. Ofcourse I have seen shit things happen to other families and yes even I have the brain capacity to go about it explaining how grieve does weird things to people and how grieve makes us all act in ways we ne

Hi y'all, Forgive me for not being a loyal blogger. If you have given up on reading my adventures I can't blame you. If you did stick around I truely want to thank you. I am struggling with time at work, with my love, renovating the new house, being there for my parents and dealing with the harsh and ugly face of ALS which my mom is still going through. Some days are good, some are not so good and some days are just [fill in the blanks with curse words of your choice] If any day why did I choose this day to write an update on my blog? Stephen Hawking died. ALS claimed another life and it just gutted me this morning. Next to a brilliant scientist that had the talent of actually reaching a broader audience with his explanation of quite dificult principles in astrophysics, astrobiology and cosmology he was the spark of hope for those understanding the face of ALS. He was the boy who lived....until just now when his body caved and he died. The world lost a brilliant mind, a man