Rotterdam Bound

Rotterdam will be my 13th marathon. It's hard to believe that I've done that many. After Chicago 2004, I swore I would never do one again (and I've swore that many times since). And look at me now! All grown up.

After NYC I was jaded. I was tired of crap weather and difficult courses. I wanted to burn a fast one. Now it remains to be seen if my recent training has me in tip-top shape, but I'm at least setting it up for an ideal setting...

The lure to Rotterdam is that its ridiculously flat, very fast, uber-competitive, and consistently decent weather. And when I say fast, I mean famously fast...

Since the 1980's, this smaller race has produced 3 separate world record's (one of which stood for over 10 years). Most recently, it's become a destination for wanna-be title seekers, though it doesn't typically draw big name guys due to the lack of payout and/or majors' points. In the last 3 years, 8 runners have post sub-2:06. 4 have been sub-2:05! 8 of the 20 fastest times ever have been produced in Rotterdam (London is 2nd w/ 5, Berlin 3rd w/ 4).

The small field is only about 10,000 deep. Last year, over 100 snagged sub-2:40. To put that into perspective... last year you needed to run 2:52 in Chicago be in the top 1% of 40,000. The cut off time in Rotterdam is 5:30, as opposed to the standard 7 or 7:30! Average finish time is sub-4hr.

In other words: this is a race for runners.

That said, I'm still not sure what my plan is. A wise man once said, "Go out fast, pick it up in the middle, and finish strong." I'm gonna go out conservative with the intention to negative split the thing, but other than that I have no idea what my body will allow.

All I know is that I'm not a shorter distance guy. But after a 16:16 last week, that should tell me something.

Gun at 11am local time. That gives me the chance to catch up on sleep. Weather looks to be ideal too: most likely high 50's/low 60's, clear skies, 3mph winds. (Yeah, that's right... 3mph!)

Giddy up!