Adventures of a marathon girl

Hi Y'all, What's cooking sweeties? Well loads of stuff is brewing on my stove since I embarked on this madness ship and set sail to Marathon finish. I am working with two brilliant people on becoming the best me I can be and the progress I still notice is so motivating! Joris and Esther are miracle workers and both of them have been introduced last time. So what is brewing on my stove? What kind of juicy concuctions are about to be served?? I have been part of Mark Zuckerberg's 'A year of running'  page on Facebook since it started out in January. Why? Well sometimes even the most dedicated and devoted runners get stuck in a rut and I've discovered that reading up on adventures by others helps me find new open places, new faces and the best races. Combine that with the best advice I ever got on post-run items such as my foam roller and this magical cream called Body Glide and there you have it....inspiration. I have had so much help from people all ...

Hi y'all, So what have you been up to last weekend? Well....My weekend was filled with a whole lot of fun. Now you've probably guessed it by now but I absolutely love country music and Irish folk music. I love playing my guitar and singing the big old classics and I love learning to do new fast reels pretending I am half as good as Barney McKenna (the immortal Dub) or all the dixie chicks (epic musicians all of 'm). Ofcourse I am not but hey a girl can dream right? And if anything...I can sing along whenever the opportunity arises. Now...when it comes to the immortal Barney that change will no longer come along since he is playing on Fiddle's green and all we can do is keep his legacy alive by playing the music he loved as much as the town he was from. The chicks? Didn't tour in about ten years but I am one hell of a lucky girl because just last saturday I got to see them perform live in Antwerp and it was opening night of their world tour as well! I c...

Hi y'all, Oh how the time flies by. Wasn't it only yesterday that I decided to take on this incredible journey? This morning I woke up feeling all jittery and filled with butterflies. Exciting times coming up this weekend and I can't wait for it to turn friday. So what's up? Well things are looking really good for me. Just one little snag being my elbow having a mild case of bursitis but I'm managing that. Trying to downsize screentime (hard for me...I am so attached to all things digital it's pathetic) and give my arm some rest. SO why so jittery and butterflied? This weekend will be epic to the max. We are going to Antwerp this weekend for two huge things: The Dixie Chicks in concert and the DVV Antwerp 10 miles. I am truely excited for both. I'm a true country music loving runner so this weekend could not suit me any better. And it helped think about what to do after the full marathon. You see I have learned one thing in San Francisco I absolute...

Hi y'all, Another week in marathon training has passed and this week I skipped one training..OMG YES I DID. Last friday I was supposed to run an 8km easy run when my sister in law appeared to be at Schiphol Airport and rang if we were home for coffee. Well...she and her kids live all the way over in Friesland so I skipped training figuring I would do it next morning. Waking up on Saturday and way after breakfast I discovered that all my running outfits, literally all of them, were in the laundry and too dirty to wear them just that one more time. Oh come on we have all done that. After washing them, doing the weekly groceries and cleaning up the kitchen my energy just tumbled all the way down and I was actually too tired to do anything. So I just decided that I would sleep. Highly recommended work-out nowadays. Sunday I did go for my long run and even though the tiredness turned into a cold and got me sneezing and coughing, the run was fun! I ran 14km which is 1/3 of a marathon...

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 ...