Adventures of a marathon girl

Hi y'all, Another week in marathon training and in my life has come and gone. Some weeks pass by hardly noticed and uneventful and others slap you in the face like a hailstorm in August. This week my world got rocked once again as I learned that after three years of hard and loyal work, there is still not a change on me getting tenure. In the Netherlands we don't have a tenure track but we have this system that allows companies (or universities) to hire people on temporary jobs for a maximum of two years. It used to be three. Tenure in higher education here should be given to you after those years but cost effiency dictates otherwise... Even though I have been in this game for nine years and even though I can wordly predict what will be said, it hurts. It is not about how good you are at your job, it is not about competence or being loyal. It is a game of numbers and quite honestly? I am done being a number. I am so much more than that and I am worth taking a change for. I ha

Hi y'all Today I ran the Zandvoort circuit run for the second time. It is a 12km run divided in three parts of 4km. The first part you run over a motor racing track, than you head down to the beach and run 4km over a stretch of beach and after that you run your last 4km back to the track and that is where you finish. Running isn't always fun and today in particular I didn't have fun. I was distracted a lot and I couldn't focus on what I was doing there and why I was there to begin with. It started out pretty well with a good first 4km on the tracks feeling good and trying to stick with my own goal which was running within my D1 zone. It all went to crap when we got to the beach. You know it is not the first time that I compare running to life. At that stretch of beach, with high tide and hardly any beach, things got tough and when they do the uglyness that people carefully hide under a thick layer of well preserved politeness? Well that goes to crap with it. I ran a

Hi y'all, Another week has passed and I finally start to feel like I am on the road and let me tell you about this week because it has been one hell of week. This week my Muscle Man, as it turns out, plays the part of the Tin Man in my journey. Why? Well as you might remember the Tin Man joined Dorothy and the Scare Crow on their journey because they all wanted a gift from the wizard. The gift the Tin Man was looking for? A heart. Now I have seen the determination in the eyes of my Muscle Man and let me tell you this. He is not at all listening to me whine when I start to mutter things like boring or ouch. He just looks at me without a word and just waits for me to do as I'm told. So you see my Muscle Man is in fact the Tin Man because when it comes to my training schedule he has no heart and he is tough as nails and the thing is....I'm actually happy about it. Now after the first strength and core work-out under his all seeing eye, I had the second real encounter on

Hi y'all, Back to the flatlands where temperatures are around subzero and rain,snow, hail and wind have become my loyal companions. Between here and Spain the difference is about 30 degrees celsius and that means that in stead of running in 3/4 tights and a cool racerback top, I am back to wearing thermos, several layers, feeling like the tiredude from Michelin and still my ass nearly froze off after my long run today. Somehow I have lost all sense of distance or maybe I have never had it to begin with. I honestly thought I had mapped out an 11km run...turns out I didn't. Click here to see where my run ended Today I chose a different route. One I ran before so not entirely new but a nice change of scenery for a chick on a mission. And my mission today was to stay within my personal D1 zone. The fun bit is that running on a flat surface makes me a wee little faster than running in the mountains. The 'let her rip' mantra I chanted when running downhill in the sier

Hi y'all Even in Spain donations on my fundraiser page keep coming in. I am overwhelmed by the immensity of the heartfelt messages our family gets. It is heartbreaking to see how many people deeply care for us all and even though research data will not come in time to save my mother, all of your donations will one day save someone. You are making this happen and I can't stress enough what that means to us all. While training in the mountains I tried to let go of concerns, pain, anger and frustrations. I had hoped that being out here in the rough and beautiful sierra's would clear my mind a little. It didn't. I felt more sad and not in touch with my family than I have ever felt before. Without the distractions of my family WhatsApp I missed my family more than ever and the complete lack of coverage only made the longing for some updates from my mom and the rest even worse. Don't get me wrong: there have been some truely spectaculair runs,  amazing views an

Hi y'all, School is out for the Dutch idea of spring break and that means one entire blissful week of not commuting, not getting up early and not working my ass off... right? Wrong! In many ways the life of a runner is similar to that of the non-runners however there is one big difference. When you're training for a marathon apperently there is no time off. Vacation merely means you pack your running stuff and train elsewhere. In my case I'm training in the dreaded mountains of the beautiful and peaceful towns around ancient Polop and La Nucia. We are in Spain.  We are visiting my inlaws because they live here during Dutch winters and honestly? I can't blame them. Winter here means at it's coldest about 13° Celsius, the scenic routes filled with an abundance of almond trees full in bloom that take you from town to town are breathtaking and coming from a flat country those mountains are always something that make us go 'wow'. Back to the vacation