Sometimes its more fun to run with others than do it all yourself.
Amsterdam Marathon
As I sat on the couch almost two years ago to ponder 100 hundred marathons in 100 hundred cities, I had a point in my mind that I had to prove: you shouldn’t need a medal to do it.
Every city these days seems to have their “official” marathon festival. There is almost always an online countdown, an exorbitant entry fee, and more costs for T-shirts, engraving, promotions, travel, accommodation, and of course, service fees. It all seemed crazy to me, forcing you to think that it required you to sacrifice co much of your money to run 42.2 kilometres, like you wouldn’t be in enough pain already.
It was for this reason that I was hell-bent on starting the Hundred City Run as “unofficial” marathons. In my view, there was no such thing. A marathon was a marathon, whether you got a medal for it or not. All you had to do was tick that counter over 42.2 kilometres and then you, my friend, were a marathoner.
But as the time has passed by, and my experience of the Hundred City Run grew, I felt a little bubble in my stomach.
I wondered…
What would it be like?
I’d seen plenty of smiling faces of websites, and I’d run plenty of 10k fun runs to know that the T-shirts could be quite cool…
Was it something I should try?
A New Era
At the same time, as I went through my rethink, the Hundred City Run reached a milestone that I had always envisioned: it was time to take the journey to Europe. I packed up my life and made a new move across the sea where I was sure I’d be hot in the face with a new type of living.
In North America, everything was big, wide, and far apart. Cities were hours away, and there was an abundance of room and space.
In Europe, people and cultures all lived on top of each other. New cities weren’t hours away, but minutes. From the right spot, you could cross 5 international borders in the time it would take to get from my old home of Toronto to its closest neighbours. And it was all different. The variety was so close. Italy, Spain, France, Luxembourg, Britain, Scandinavia, Turkey… it was all there waiting to be explored in close vicinity to each other.
I landed in Amsterdam with excitement in my heart. The Hundred City Run had entered a new era.
At the same time, I had seen before arriving that the official marathon event was scheduled for just the second weekend after my arrival.
The universe, I figured, was telling me it was time.
I signed up.
It was time to find out what I’d been missing out on.
The City and the Bicycles
Amsterdam’s history is rich and interesting. Founded as a humble fishing village, it evolved to be one of the world’s most significant trading hubs from the 12th century. Ancient tax laws – which punished homeowners based on the width of a house – meant that the buildings are supremely narrow, with long large windows on their fronts to soak in light, and thin staircases, sometimes as steep as a ladder, squashed crudely inside them. Ropes hung down from the roof to help moving furniture in from the outside as the thin pods allowed nothing larger than a washing machine to pass within.
If you happened to plan moving a couch in one of these units any time soon, I’m sorry to say you ain’t going to make to the door.
The heritage of these buildings are UNESCO-protected, so the downtown canals and building facades are beautifully preserved in a monument to the city’s past. Remnants of wartime remain all through the veins of the thin, cobbled streets, as monuments that are haunting, tragic, and beautiful all at once, with stories available to read through the Jewish quarters.
I had spent very little time in Europe before, and so I was in awe of the reality around me.
I was also introduced to something else: the sheer abundance of bicycles. I had never seen so many in one city. They lay chained to trees, poles, parking spots, gates, fences. They double, triple, quadruple-parked each other as the locals tried to find anywhere to put them. You couldn’t look anywhere without seeing them. The infrastructure was so well set up to accommodate the biking behaviour, with a clearly-visible red road for cycling down almost every street.
While the locals appeared usually friendly, something strange happened to them when they hopped on one of their two-wheeled steeds: they became absolute, total psychopaths. I’d never seen so many daredevils weaving in and out of the impossibly narrow crevices. No pathway was too cracked. Not gap between trucks was too thin. As far as the Dutch were concerned, if you are on your bike, you are totally and utterly invincible.
It was a truly remarkable place to be.
The Dutch have a word: Gezellig. It has no exact direct English translation, and can be used in many different scenarios, but at its core it describes a feeling within of intimate coziness. It can be used to describe the feeling of a night out with a friend, sitting together at a restaurant and watching the world go buy. Or the experience you might get by walking calmly in a park, surrounded by falling autumn leaves. Gezellig describes a physical, emotional, cultural or spiritual hug upon you, and it perfectly described my new home.
The Marathon
After a few weeks settling in, the day arrived and it was time to run.
I had picked up my pack – running bib, T-shirt, safety pins and way too many brochures – so I felt unnaturally covered in extra knick-knacks. The weather was notorious for rain around this time, and it had already showered in the morning, so I was sure we were in for a wet one.
It would all kick off at the site of the 1928 Summer Olympics, a stadium that had been preserved beautifully, but still was maintained for sport matches today. But it would be a while before I started as I was in the final, slowest wave of allocated runners.
It was odd to wait. Every marathon before had started with me setting off at my own pace, my own choice, after a detailed stretching and warmup session. Now, I was stuck in crowds of people, literally unable to start until they opened the fastened gate to let our “corral” start moving. I put the thought to the back of my mind and focussed on what I was about to do.
After about 45 minutes of forced extra moving and shaking to keep warm, it was my turn. My fellow runners trotted under the banner to kick it all off with 300 metres along the running track, before leaving the stadium through the open exit. We all whooped and cheered as we set off, starting our watches, and putting our minds to the task ahead.
What transcribed next was difficult to describe unless you’d been in it. For nearly 4 hours, I barely took three steps in a simple straight line. The throngs of people running had been squashed into narrow streets inside a narrow city, so my mind was far more focussed not on the running, but in dodging other competitors like a motorcycle through traffic. I was shuffling from side to side, jostling around others, slowing down when a gap closed, speeding up when one opened. It was wild, and messy. The cobble stones below were particularly dangerous, with recent rains putting large lakes of water along long sections if of deep road, so my feet soaked early after a few missteps.
I was frustrated and bitter. This was too much and I had a long way to go.
After 12 kilometres, the route turned us out past the city limits and down the Amstel River. Here the roads were replaced by walking paths, and so while there was a little relief on the outside, it meant navigating the muddy grass. I found some solace on a few good stretches of gravel but they were few and far between, so I remained trapped. I was cold in the wind and rain. I was endlessly bumped by people around me, and had avoided a few run-ending ankle spills.
By this stage I had fully accepted that my pace was completely up to those around me, and not me. This was a run now I just had to endure, and finish.
And then, the magic happened.
We turned around along the Amstel, and soon after that passed the halfway mark. We were heading back to the city, detouring on the eastern side to cover the necessary marathon distance, when my eyes suddenly started to truly catch what was happening around me.
There was something else here.
Something marvellous.
An energy.
Amazingly, despite the constant side-to-side, surge and stop, duck and weave of the day across injury-provoking uneven cobblestones, slippery tram tracks and muddy grasses, I was starting to enjoy it. The other runners and me were a school of fish, together, swimming and swimming and swimming as one, helping each other forward. I could sense it now. I saw connection, camaraderie, friendship amongst so many around me. I started to see runners move to the side to hug a loved one. I saw children with signs wishing everybody well. I saw friends running together, laughing. I saw costumes, and colours. I saw high fives, and even a cheeky sip of a beer handed by a friend on the side. I saw a few break down with cramped legs, and then strangers helping them up or passing them their own electrolyte drinks.
And then it all hit me.
It wasn’t about the medal.
The crowd, the energy. It was about being here, in this moment, doing it tough together. Nobody cared how many marathons anybody had done around them. All they cared about was getting to the end and celebrating together with loved ones. And boy, did they turn up. Even at the most rural of places along the Amstel River, they were there, packing the sides of the course in layers, cheering through the rain. I smiled. I let my legs carry me forward and soaked in the atmosphere around me. I let the cheers, and claps, and instruments bring me home back into the Olympic stadium. As I crossed the finish line I made sure to register the thousands of sweaty, exhausted, relieved faces of those who had completed their first, second, third, tenth, twentieth, or maybe even hundredth, who knew?
I couldn’t help but marvel at what I had experienced. I had never felt such a thrill just by running with people around me, knowing that they were giving it their all to accomplish a dream.
The moment arrived, and someone put a medal around my neck, but the greatest reward was that my mind had changed about it all.
Reflection
Running the “official” marathon festival in Amsterdam has opened a new set of doors for me. The atmosphere of running the roads with others brought a thrill I hadn’t experienced in the other runs. Having thousands cheering us on was nothing short of incredible, and it has left an infection within me that I can tell will not go away.
I’m craving more. I can feel it. Without spoiling things, even writing this, I have already signed up for three more in 2024 (stay tuned).
And I simply can’t wait.
The Hundred City Run has evolved. It will now include solo and officially organised marathons. And so the lesson for you, today, is that it’s okay for your mind to change. It’s okay for the journey to change, for your mind to change.
After all, I think that means it’s working.
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