It was a real competition because of the cancellation not, but hundreds of runners ran the half marathon of Egmond today. “It’s part of the start of the new year,” says a happy runner. Only the audience – and therefore the encouragement for the athletes – was missing.
The Egmond half marathon was on the running agenda for today, but was canceled a month ago due to the high number of corona infections and the corona measures.
This morning Maarten, together with Martijn Ploeger and eleven other members of their Alkmaar sports club, went to Egmond to run on the beach. Martijn says he missed the competitive element of the marathon after all.
“I’m competitive and now that it’s not really a competition, I have less motivation,” he says just after the ‘finish’. “I wasn’t that fast and I trained less for it than usual.”
Running buddy Maarten sees it differently. For him, the Egmond half marathon – official or not – is a measuring moment after the holidays. “It helps enormously if you have a dot on the horizon, also to temper food during the holidays, and to train for this,” he says. “We had already taken into account that the match would not take place and decided to run anyway.”
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Canceled half marathon of Egmond ran en masse – NH Nieuws
Maarten, Martijn and their running friends are anything but the only ones on Egmond beach. “It is quite busy and there were a lot of runners,” they say. “That also motivates. Everyone encourages you when you walk by. Like ‘come on, the last kilometers’ and such.”
e-mail from mother
NH Nieuws received a sweet email from a mother. “My son Ronald also walked this morning, within two hours! That deserves attention, because I am very proud”, Joke Schilling writes. Well, with this one.
A quick phone call with son Ronald (48) yields a nice anecdote and photo. “I think I was the first this morning! It was still dark and rainy when I started. Although I waited in the car for a while until it got drier,” says the satisfied runner.
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He can’t keep it dry on the windy beach either. “I walked with wet feet because of the high water, but it was wonderful.” Ronald runs the course as it is in the ‘real’ half marathon, which can be seen on his Strava account.
After seven kilometers on the beach, he runs over a steep climb in the dunes and then returns to Egmond, where if you run through the famous Van Speijk lighthouse becomes visible in the distance.
Early in the morning the lighthouse is symbolically the only spectator for Ronald. “I completely understand that it was cancelled, but I’m still happy that I was able to run at my own times.”
? Don’t you want to miss anything from Alkmaar and surroundings?
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