Brooks 10k Amsterdam race recap

My first race after the Alpe d’HuZes. Running hasn’t been going very well this past month. I am apparently still recovering from the ultra and also got a cold during the ultra and it took me about three weeks to get rid of it.

The European Athletics Championships took place in Amsterdam in July. During the championships the athletes run a half marathon through the center of Amsterdam by running two 10k loops. After the elite were done there was a 10k race (1 loop) over the same course organized by the championships’ sponsor: Brooks.

They were supposed to send you the bib number and a technical t-shirt in advance. I received the bib number the day before the race, but the shirt never arrived. So before the race I stood in line to see if I could still get the t-shirt and judging by the length of the queue there were a lot of other runners who also didn’t get their shirt. So the organization pre-event wasn’t great, but at least they had the shirts on race day.

It was very sunny and very warm on race day, around 25 degrees and since the race took place from 11 – 15 it was also the warmest time of day and there was hardly any shade. Luckily, they had water stations every 2.5 km, but even then you were always thirsty, since they gave out half filled cups of water instead of bottles. As the race progressed more and more people fainted because of the heat and you could hear ambulances arriving and leaving. Apparently about 15 runners were taken to the hospital by ambulance.

The course itself was great, along the canals, through the Vondelpark and underneath the Rijksmuseum. And you got a nice medal at the end, although you did have to pay extra for it. I had enough space to run, because the corrals were spaced 15 min apart, which I think was a good decision with 15,000 runners and the sometimes narrow streets of Amsterdam. But in this case I couldn’t benefit from it since I was running very slowly. With 1:25:18 it is my slowest race yet, but this made my running shirt which said “Slow runners make fast runner look good, you’re welcome” even more appropriate. I got positive comments on the shirt during the race. A couple of people thanked me, a few others told me it was a nice shirt and other people tried to encourage me not to honor the text on the shirt too much. So even though I didn’t run very fast, I at least had a good time doing it.