Notes from the Amsterdam (half)marathon.

I was just in Amsterdam for the TCS Amsterdam marathon 2026. Unwillingly, I switched from marathon distance to half-marathon distance but ended up being very happy about this choice. And from that choice, from the whole experience, I learned something.

In this post, I’ll write down what I have learned in this year’s (half)marathon.

Why (just) half?

I was about to participate in a full marathon, even though I had been injured for the last two months before the race and I could not train. But my brilliant coach said, “Respect your body”. Sometimes you have to pull out of the race. If you run long enough, you can’t expect that every race will be a PB and every training season will go without problems. So I pulled out, I switched to a half marathon, and I was very happy about it.

Is a half marathon just a pathetic half?
I think that half marathon has a marketing problem. It is “half”. In the name, it says it is just a little something, not a real deal. And if you tell your friends that you will run a half-marathon, you will hear, “Why just a half”?

Last spring, I was preparing for a mile race, and I saw quite a lot of confused faces when I told them about it. “Who can’t run just a mile?” they said.

The reality is that a race isn’t just the race day. It starts many months before, when we start to train and prepare. A mile is a challenge if you want to improve your PB by 20 seconds. Lots of intervals, weight training, not that many long 25km runs. The whole process is very challenging, even though a mile only takes 6 minutes (for me it does) to finish.

I feel that a shorter race, a half marathon in this case, takes more self-awareness and readiness to ignore the disappointed faces when you are not running the full marathon. A half marathon is an awesome race; nobody should feel bad about choosing to run it. You still have to train a lot, experience the process, get to the starting line, and struggle through the race.

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

This is a famous quote from Mark Twen. The way I understand it is that it is difficult and time-consuming to say just that need to be said. It takes focus; focus takes energy and time.

When running a marathon or half-marathon, for me I feel that registering for the next marathon is automatic behaviour. If I take my time and think of my fitness goals and I think how I want to train, a half-marathon makes more sense.

So will my next race will be a half or full marathon? If I don’t have time to think, I’ll run the full one.

The emphaty is happiness

The first woman who officially ran a marathon was Kathrine Switzer in 1967 in Boston. She has said, “If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon”.

In Amsterdam, I was watching the marathon distance runners from the sidelines, waiting for my wife and friends to cheer them on. You could say – these are just people running. But there is much more than people running.

For me, for some reason, watching a marathon is a very emotional experience. Lots of goosebumps. Lots of empathy for everyone fighting through the distance. Runners pushing through their issues, their inner voice that says “stop, slow down, you can walk now”. For 40k runners, there are 40k stories. Some are running for health, some are running to prove to them selves a self worth, some pretend that they have a chance to become profesioan athlete, some are overcoming grief, divorce, addiction or a tragedy. It is not just taking one step after another. It is transitioning from before to the person who is capable of finishing the race. Every race is a lot of emotions.

I finished the Amsterdam marathon 11 years ago. And interestingly, when I was running my half marathon now, there were places at a distance that I remember very vividly. I remember the feeling, I remember where my wife was to support me, I remember where I started to struggle. In a marathon, emotions are so strong that the memories don’t fade away for a long time. That’s why we run marathons.

Competing with oneself – what does that mean?

My coach says – you are only competing with yourself. That makes sense – we are not professional athletes. But am I competing with my PB’s? Sometimes you are just competing with yourself, your inner self who says – let’s slow down, let’s quit. For me, it doesn’t make sense to compete with my PB. In a half marathon, I set it 12 years ago – I was 12 years younger. But I still want to run and just compete with the potential I have today. I exist today; I don’t exist 12 years ago anymore. Let’s leave 12 years younger myself alone.
To be honest, I didn’t compete with anything but with negative thoughts assosiated with me downgrading from maraton to half-marathon. And, I you read if I just wrote – I won!

Concluding thoughts

It is not just the running and finishing times. Running is about the belief in humanity, about the belief in ourselves. Our ability to overcome our issues and achieve what we have set for ourselves. I love running, and I love seeing others who run. We are all just humans competing with today’s potential.

My gels, gadgets, gear

I couple of words about the stuff that was in my pockets, on my feet and went into my stocmach.

I tried to run with Pillar gels and found them excellent. In last 8 years in events I only have used Maurten (In training I try every brand thou). Pillar gels make me feel great, I like the texture and taste. I would suggest to try them to everyone!

Video, that Im putting together – I usded Insta360 X6. It is easy to use, the quality is awesome – still, I’m responsible for getting a story out of the footage.

On my feet – Brooks Hyperion 3! For asphalt running, I believe, Brooks are excellent shoes.