Back 2 Back. Ambitious. This marathon was planned from last year. Part of a mission accompanying Gertjan in his #roadto81country marathon running for him to claim #1 🇳🇱 title in country collected. Ik heb er zin in😁.
The stay. We stayed at Hotel Prima which is a 10min walk to the start line. It is a family run hotel. The owner is nice. Makes me feel at “home”. One can tell that the city is still developing. Understandable given it was only a quarter of a century ago that it gained independence. I read about the war in the news. It’s quite special to experience a history outcome. Almost everyone speaks good english and the streets are named after US politicians shaping the outcome of the state.
The city was really quiet. At 10am when we got to the square to collect our bib, it felt like one stepping into a “village”. A few coffee places were open and after an hour of walk around the city, we found a cafe and took a break. 😃
The route
It was a mass start for all distances. Nice to have a bigger crowd starting at the same time. The first 10km see us running on a motorway closed from traffic. It felt safe. Police patrolling at every crossing.
At km10 turning point, the HM runners turned around. It started getting really quiet and empty on the road. For the longest time, it was me and the wide open fields and the occasional farm house. I could sometimes still spot Gertjan faintly ahead of me. In the beginning there were still kids who kept me distracted, greeting me with much excitement. They and guessed called my exotic nationality; Chinese, Japanese… “Malaysia, i said” 😀. Sometimes the kids will run along side me for a some fun.
For about 2km an ambulance was tailing me. Although i appreciate the concern, the sound of a car engine bothered me. I looked back a few times almost signaling “hey i am ok, just go” and it eventually did.
Midway, the stronger runners had turned around and i started counting the number of women ahead of me. Top 3, all Kenyans. Some small distraction for an otherwise really lonely route. 😅
The last 10km was on the motorway which is still closed to traffic! Much to my surprise. There were not a throng of runners which deserve such “space luxury“ but nevertheless it (always) felt good to run on empty motorways 😃.
So this photo means a lot to me 💙.
In 2 weeks time, it is Tirana Marathon. 😉
meysrunningjourney.com 