21 Dutch Kilometers

The Dutch city of Leiden 

Hi!  I'm back, seems like it has been a while and thought it a good time to share one of our latest weekend trips.  This time to a small town in the Netherlands called Leiden which sits roughly 30 minutes south of Amsterdam.  Seems like a bit odd, out of the way location but that was kind of the point.  Also a place that I had read about a few years ago as a town that had a great marathon and seeing as how I was in need of a half-marathon to run, seemed like a great idea.  Turns out that it was!

It was a fairly short 2 and a half hour train ride from Paris on Friday evening to get us to Leiden.  We had been able to find an actual apartment to rent as opposed to a hotel which is a bit of a crap shoot since you don't always know what you are going to get, but in this case we could not have had a better place to stay.  Leiden itself was an extremely cute little Dutch town with canals and brick buildings, think Amsterdam but smaller and without the circus / party parts of town.  Our apartment was about a 5 minute walk from the main part of town which was also the location of the start / finish of the race and was very convenient.

Our bounty from the market

After a quiet Friday night and with the race on Sunday morning, Saturday morning we decided to head into town and found a great open air market along the main canal with all various stands be it fruits, vegetables, fish, cheese, and an extraordinary stand with mediterranean olives and dipping type sauces.  This one in particular was quite a treat.  

Picking up my packet in front of the church

Knowing that we would have a quiet evening in our apartment that night (the race was Sunday morning after all) we loaded up with snacks to take home in preparation of movie night.  Another stop that day of course was the race packet pick up.  Having done a number of races over the years the pick up is usually in a open air, tent type area but not here.  In this case being a European town the packet pick up was in of course the old church at the center of town, which made for a unique race experience.  Packet in hand, snacks at  home, we made our way to the apartment to get some rest and get ready for the big day.

Sunday morning weather wise looked rough, it had rained all night but had passed by 8 am fortunately.  Mostly cold and windy but not rainy which was good.  Start of the race again was about 5 minutes from our apartment.  The race course was a great, mostly flat layout winding through small neighborhoods, wide open fields with lots of cows, and lined in many spots with spectators and bands.  It was a really great route that eventually came back into the town of Leiden along the canals and bridges back to the center.  Having accomplished my first goal of simply finishing, I was also pleased to have a time of 1 hour 40 minutes as a new PR, though to be fair, on a flat course.  Upon arriving in the finishing chute you receive the usual water, then a fruit and banana station, then being very Dutch the last station was of course a nice pour of Amstel.

Celebration!

Having finished the race we celebrated with a few local Belgian beers we had found at this little beer store on Saturday before finding a little watering hole with a bunch of pool tables and dart boards which was a perfect end to the day.  I can't say enough good things about the weekend we had, wish the weather had been bit nicer but hey, you can't have it all.  I'll definitely look forward to running this event again in the future!

Sunset in Leiden