Adventures of a marathon girl

Hi y'all, This country, much like me, seems to be all or nothing in everything. When it rains...it RAINS, when the cold kicks in your butt will freeze off, when spring visits life blooms around you and when summer decides to make an entrance you better believe it is a grand one. Holy smokestack the weather pulled a 180 and I'm running in shorts and tops again. Loving the summer heat as long as it will last because trust me: the flatlands won't make you enjoy this for too long. Dutch summers are typically wet, grey and not warm. The summer we get to enjoy is about 2 weeks in May and then some around September but hey...I am currently stacking summer joy memories so I can go around telling everybody about our amazing Dutch summers like all the other misguided reality challenged ones around here. Look I have to admit running in the summer heat isn't my favorite time around. Trust me I love heat, summer, beaches and ocean but running in heat I am not a huge fan of. ...

Hi y'all, Remember my last post? The one on the butterflies and how very unclear it was? Well right about three days after that post a huge glittery, sparkly, bubbly and very lively bomb dropped from the sky and made a possitively good kind of mess. I needed some time to just breath, reorganize and wait for the dust to settle just so I could try to find focus in all that is new and awesome. SO what happened? Well I got a new job and by new I mean not only did I find a new place of work...the job itself is completely new to me too even though I do realize that most of what I'm good at is part of the job. I started working as relationship manager at the Dutch ALS foundation on April first and ever since that day I have been trying to keep up with my own life. After about twenty years in education I can honestly say that I had a good run (well...a run...) but that I'm done running that race. Another chapter to the same old story would probably destroy me and even thoug...

Hi y'all, A few weeks ago I told y'all that the switch had flipped and that it felt like things were about to change and now I know they are. This last week it seemed like my whole life was about to flip 180 degrees and turn everything upside down back into to the sunlight.  Maybe it is just spring that suddenly broke lose in Amsterdam, maybe it's alle the positive changes that took shape and form this week but somehow I wake up and go to bed with this weird feeling that all of the things I did these past couple of months have led me to this whole new place and it is as unreal as it is true and I am looking at the world in awe once again. So what happened? The better question here would be; what didn't? Everything happened and it all seemed to happen over the course of 48 hours. It started a week ago with me applying for a job I didn't get but then got a call that they might have something else in mind for me. Without going into further details I can share this ...

Hi Y'all, "Anything in life can be measured" someone once told me. I think it was a mathmatician who said it and probably the love of my life since he is one. At that time I didn't think much of it but lately that quote keeps popping up in my head. You know the thing is I am once again completely mesmerized by my second love which is running. I am completely in it's grips and I surrendered to it like cookie monster would to cookies. Right now all I can think of and all I really want to do is run my own runs, go to classes on running, talk to other runners about running and coach other runners. There is nothing else I seriously want to do. I can't read anything unless it's running related and the only thing I feel good doing when I'm not running, coaching or preparing classes is lying on my couch watching Netflix wondering where and when to plan and plot and scheme our next vacation that most definately should include a run or stunning nature so I c...

Hi y'all, It's been a little quiet on my part here due to  some major developments and alas a horrible cold that struck me like a huge boulder flying in from space. You catch my drift right? But today I feel like I am finally getting rid of this horrible cough that's been keeping me up and my voice seems to be recovering too. Good things. Anyway I have some pretty amazing things to tell you so without further ado these are the things that happened in the past weeks: First I smashed my PR on the 10km race in Schoorl with about 4 entire minutes and ran an amazing 00:55:20 race in the dunes that were covered in snow too. I started out just connecting to my pace and I kept telling myself to stay in sync with my body. I just never stopped running and when I crossed that finishline I was baffled. I honestly thought my watch broke or something but it didn't and I smashed each and every PR between 0 and 10km. To me it is just incredible what a decent and custom built runn...

Hi Y'all, As most of y'all know I am currently learning how to be running coach and so far it has been an inspiring, motivational and insightful journey. Not only do you work on your own running techniques but you get to work on how to learn others how to run. In order to do so you need so much more than just a basic understanding of running. We get to work on heart rate tests, anatomy (of a running body in action even), injuries and injury prevention, how to design specific training modules and how to teach running in real life by designing lessons and teaching your fellow running coach program buddies. We get together on Saturdays for this course and we sit down for about an hour and a half to discuss homework assignments like physiology, anatomy, training principles, heart rate tests and so on. Half of the time my head starts spinning after an hour because the science of training athletes is a fast one and there are so many scientific researches out and...

Hi y'all, This story is not a fairy tale. It is a true story on how someone embarked on a journey with me, stuck to it even when the waters were rising, the wind picked up and his ship started to rock violently. It is the story of my brother of whom I am tremendously proud. He deserves his moment in the spotlight. He deserves to feel good about what he has accomplished. He deserves to feel his moment. Own it brother because this one is for you and only you have made this happen. I was but a mere spark. You did the work and boy did it make you FLY! About 4 or so months ago I kinda sneaked my brother into running the only way a sister knows how to. I just handed him a giftcard and a total beginners schedule. Scared to death that he would dismiss it all together and finding myself dumbstruck when he actually said yes to a couch2k running program. He quit smoking about two months prior to that moment and told me he wanted to be a fit and healthy daddy to his little girl Gwen. Now...