Aaron goes to Rotterdam

Hallo all,

Tomorrow, I'll be heading out to Rotterdam to run the Rotterdam Marathon! According to Runners World, Rotterdam is one of the top 10 marathons in the world, so to run this event is going to be an awesome moment.

On top of that, this year will be the 30th Rotterdam Marathon, which also coincides with my age(!), so it's basically a jubilee event. To celebrate, the organisers are giving away 2 free trips to "some place warm", provided that your race number, upon collecting it at the marathon expo, is inside a "golden envelope". Doesn't that remind you of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?! Well, hopefully I can win that awesome prize!

Rotterdam is a very pancake-flat course, which is going to produce some spectacular times. Expect a world record (or close to world record time) this year! Unfortunately, I'm not in peak condition to run a fast marathon, so I'm going to take it easy, soak up the experience and jog my way through Rotterdam. Maybe I'll take my camera along with me and take a few snaps of Rotterdam, mile by mile! I was thinking of tweeting during the race, but I think that might be taking things a little bit too far!

The aim is to keep the intensity as easy as possible, probably around a 6 - 6.5/10 on the rate of perceived exertion scale. It will be interesting to see how well I reign in the pace as it's a natural tendency for me to speed up once I've hit my stride. I'm confident that I can finish the race comfortably, but I'm interested to see how my body holds up after the race, even at such a leisurely pace!

After Rotterdam, I'll be heading to Amsterdam for a few days to check out the city and hopefully stay out of trouble! In order to keep travel costs down, I've made a reservation in a budget hotel that has shared bathroom facilities on every floor. Not normally one to bring a towel on holiday, and being a hotel with shared bathroom facilities, I enquired whether the hotel provides towels to guests. The response I got was classic!

We change towels every day. However, if it is not a big problem for you, I suggest to bring yours, this is what I do all the time when I travel, it is more convenient for me. But we wash, dry and provide new towels every day.

HILARIOUS! I'm not really interested in whether or not you bring your towel on holiday. Isn't it more convenient to not bring a towel when you travel and just use what the hotel provides? I don't know whether she was serious, or just taking the piss. Is this a Dutch thing???

Finally, this week's training recap post will be postponed until I return. That will be followed by a race report, and hopefully some awesome pictures from the Rotterdam Marathon. As usual, I'll be tweeting from the event (but not when I run!), so follow me to get all the latest action from Rotterdam as it happens!

Tot ziens!

Aaron