We all met up in Amsterdam on the Friday. We flew from Manchester and Katy took the Eurostar from London with her friend who came to support us all.

Where we stayed

Because we’d booked our places late – most people booked them in October 2024 - there wasn’t much accommodation (affordable and not up 4 flights of steep stairs) in the centre of the city, so we opted for an apart-hotel (Cityden Stadshart) on the outskirts of Amsterdam in Amstelveen. It worked very well for us, I’d recommend it.

The number 5 tram that went straight into the city centre was a 1 minute walk from the apart-hotel, there was a shopping centre a short walk away and the airport bus stopped about a 3min walk away. More importantly, if we needed to, we could cycle or walk to the Olympic Stadium where the marathon start/finish was if we really needed to (although in the end we booked Ubers).

Let's talk about ... toilets

I don’t think the non-marathoners in our party enjoyed the main topic of conversation the day before the marathon: bodily functions before/during the marathon. In fact Andy thought we were way too obsessed (being a man he wouldn’t really have to think quite so much about it). Toilet queues for females at events are legendary.: ask any female. You hear about people missing their start slot because they were still in the toilet queue. Well, it almost happened to me on marathon day.

When we got out of the Uber near the start areas, the first thing you could see was the toilet queues! Katy and Pippa were assigned to start area B outside the stadium, whereas I was in start area A inside the stadium.

After taking a quick photo together I went on my way to the stadium to drop off my bag of warm after-clothing and to join the toilet queue!

I was also hoping to meet with a fellow Marple Runner that was also running the marathon (but would probably finish about an hour ahead of me).

If I’d joined the first toilet queue I met, I think I definitely would have missed my start slot. Instead, I walked on hoping to find another, shorter queue, which I did. I then wanted to rejoin the end of the queue like every sensible female does when the nerves start to set in! I’m a 3-wee runner. So I decided I’d head into the stadium to try and find my fellow Marple Runner and join a toilet queue for my final wee. Neither happened. I couldn’t find Kevin and they stopped us joining the toilet queues inside the stadium and insisted we join the queues by the track start area. And before I got to the front of the queue my start slot were lining up, so I ended up having to run to my start area all flustered and start whipping off the old painting jumper I’d worn that I could leave at the start (t was bitterly cold to begin with: 6 degrees).

Helpful advice sent to me by Katy just before the race.

The race itself

And then we were off! No time to get really nervous, just start running, start the interval timer, start my Garmin watch and keep looking out for Kevin and our 2 daughters. And just keep putting one foot in front of the other, multiple times…

I loved running through the Rijksmuseum arches with the orchestra serenading us as we ran through:

Here's a YouTube link.

The race in bullet points:

• Downhill at the start through the park (which meant back uphill at the end!).

• Managed to spot Kevin, my fellow Marple Runner (the stripes are so easy to spot!) on a contra-flow part of the course.

• Waited in a 6min toilet queue at 11km – no more toilets until 18km, hence the queues!

• Saw Andy, Joanna and Katy's friend multiple times throughout the course – it really makes a huge difference to grab hugs off friends/family during the race – thank you family & friends!

• Chatted to quite a few fellow jeffers along the way. Quite a lot were Scottish!

• Chatted to a South African who only entered the day before and had a bad leg - he jeffed with me for a while until his bad leg wouldn’t let him run the next bit with me.

• 12-25 km down and back up the river wasn’t so great. Virtually no crowds and you just keep wondering where the turn is when you can start heading back up again. Met a Scottish girl who was really struggling and I ran with her friend at 34 km who said she’d had to give up.

• At 25 km I had to take painkillers for my hamstring and started wondering if I’d make it.

• At 34 km I really was wondering if I would make it – the crowd really helped me here,

• At 37 km I just told myself it’s just a parkrun, you ARE going to make it.

And then at about 39 km a big smile appeared on my face because I knew then that I was going to make it!

And you run into the stadium and its' noisy and you’ve made it with a big smile on your face!

Anyone who tells you they don’t care about their marathon finish time has their pants on fire! I know I said this many times when people asked me. Once I became injured, I really had to drop any hopes of a decent time, but I still had a secret time in my head that I would really like to have beaten. I didn’t.