The annual 10 days of real cold weather in the Netherlands are over. Temperatures stayed above 0C at night so the snow and ice are melting! While I love the look and feel of winter running, I am also happy that I do not need to be as carefull anymore with regards to slippery parts and my recovering hamstring.
My next marathon “Coast Marathon Nationaal Park de Hollandse Duinen” is early februari. This will be a trail run on the beach and in the dunes with 90% of the route being unpaved. I will treat this run as a trainingsrun rather than wanting to beat my marathon PR, however I am aiming to beat my 2025 time for this race.
My blog post on the 2025 edition:
@rainbowdash4l/coast-marathon-nationaal-park-hollandse-duinen-jni
My strategy will be to be completely self dependent - bringing everything I could need and try to just zone out enjoying the beautiful environment and staying as consistant in my pace as possible. Compared to last year, I feel stronger and will have the benefit of trail shoes.
As I approach this as a fun run, I won’t bebtapering at all, this run should be a nice step up for my sub 3 ambitions later dan this year!
Today I stayed in zone 2 for 15 km. As I did 18 km of cycling earlier in the morning.
The focus on lower speed runs allows me to run everyday and build a strong foundation while isolating speed and hill work trainings for maximum effect.
Today I decided to have some fun running around an airport nearby (Rotterdam The Hague airport) which was fun for once, but also forced me to run on the main road for a few km.