Week 13
When you think it can’t get worse,
it can. Because just after you recover from a mild injury, you get hit by some small virus. A few-hundred-nanometer thingy enters your body and shuts it down for one week.
With 3 weeks of total break, I really don’t know if the whole project will continue. With 8 weeks to go, it’s a very small time window to start everything all over again.
The good news is that it looks like spring is finally here.
So, starting from tomorrow: full speed…
Let’s be honest — it won’t be a great return. It will be slow, step by step, very slow, probably quite frustrating.
Still, I can’t wait to be on track again.
Week 11 – full speed reverse
This was to be expected.
The recovery run showed that something still isn’t quite right with the right leg.
And the left one, in an act of solidarity, decided to join in with occasional micro-cramps.
4 km out of 30 planned.
Let’s see what the next week brings.
Week 10 – The Envelope
Preparation is now somewhere in the middle.
After a very slow winter start, the run is finally beginning to take its proper shape.
I am still a bit behind with the weekly volume, but the long runs are now progressing as they should. The heart rate could probably be lower, but it does not feel like I am pushing the body too hard.
(Although tomorrow morning may have a different opinion.)
During today’s run an interesting thought appeared.
The first marathon — the legendary one about a Greek messenger running from Marathon to Athens — was not about breaking records. It was not about training plans, motivation strategies, or power gels with caffeine.
It was about a message traveling 42 kilometers through time and space.
Somewhere around kilometer fifteen a question appeared:
What message can one place inside an envelope made of 40,000 steps, 36,000 heartbeats, and weeks of preparation?
Week 9
It has been two months since preparation started.
Statistically, during these two months around 100 children in the Netherlands were diagnosed with cancer. For many of them, treatment will last somewhere between 6 months and 3 years.
Statistically, a person who stands on the start line of a marathon has about an 85% chance of finishing. Almost the same number represents the survival rate of childhood cancer treatment.
What would it mean to increase it by 1%? Or 0.1%? Or even 0.00001%?
I wish I could say that I am the one helping to change those numbers. But the real work is done by the people at the Princess Máxima Center. Every single day, they are the ones making the difference.
The run is only a vehicle. A way to make people stop for a moment. A way to ask the question so that it can be heard — and so that someone may choose to answer.
And I am just a messenger. My role is simply to carry every answer from the start line to the finish.
With an 85% chance of success.
Week 8
Things are starting to get serious — entering strain-conditioning mode. Long runs, increased volume. With three months to go, it’s time to push harder… but not stupid hard — nothing should break.
Sunday was the first true long run. I started with the standard route to the PMC building — the one I always used when launching previous fundraising campaigns. Speaking of fundraising: no donations yet, but the page hasn’t been promoted. It’s the same as building endurance during training — you prepare quietly before going public. I wanted to put some content here first. But I think it’s time to get serious.
The original plan was simple: 7 km out, then turn back. But at some point I asked myself: does a particle turn around once it has started its journey?
That’s what happens when you combine physics with running.
And yes — I take real satisfaction in knowing that somewhere in spacetime, my lifeline bends every time I set myself in motion.
Week 7
Finally, temperatures above 10 degrees ☀️ Back on track.
(Though slightly behind the training schedule.)
Week 4 and 5 were oscillations between “I feel good enough to hit the gym” and a never-ending flu. I probably incubated entire generations of new viruses that will be ready for next season. But for now — all is good.
There was one unexpected benefit of running on a treadmill. When the body stays in place, the only thing that can move freely is the mind. So mine did — mostly traveling back through running memories.
The pacemaker’s words in the last kilometer of the Warsaw Marathon still echo in my head:
“You would not be here if you were not strong enough.”
He was wearing a hat with small bells. I can still hear them.
I remember an elderly man standing among the supporters in Amsterdam, holding a Polish flag. He looked like someone cut out from a completely different story — as if he was there to greet soldiers coming back home. Maybe he was a soldier himself.
There was also a dramatic chase to catch a train in Paris. That deserves a separate story. In short: I was in a kind of “running blues” after my last big race. I finished, but I couldn’t feel joy. I was always slightly jealous reading about the endorphin wave that hits people at the finish line. It never hit me.
Until then.
Running for that train, something hidden inside finally broke open. Apparently, sometimes the wave needs a few weeks to reach the shore.
And all those moments in the starting box — excitement mixed with fear, mixed with irrational thoughts about everything that could go wrong during the race.
Week 6 was different — holiday. My AI coach says that while skiing I made the equivalent of “5 long cross-training days.” All I know is that at the end of each day I was completely drained of energy, so I guess it worked well.
Week 3 Winter hits back
If you think you can just put on your running shoes and start chasing geese* in winter, let me stop you right there. The Dutch winter has a secret way of punching you from the inside. No idea how it does it, but it feels like a million tiny cold monsters biting straight into your flesh.
So I retreated to the gym — two sessions moved indoors, hoping things would improve. Instead, I got sick again.
If this keeps going, there won’t be any real time left for proper training before the end of May. Change strategy?
What’s actually happening
You’re not “failing winter.”
You’re stacking cold + exposure + intensity + inconsistency, and your immune system is tapping out. Dutch winter is sneaky like that — damp, wind, and just warm enough to trick you.
My trainer told me exactly what I already know. So the plan stays simple: keep intensity low and wait for spring. According to all predictions, that should arrive in early March.
Until then, this isn’t about building fitness.
It’s about staying healthy enough to be ready when it finally does.
* after making research I found out that Joy is a Greylag Goose
Week 2 – Crushing through the winter
No cold, no ice, no snow, and no wild animals will stop me.
Another week passed, and slowly my body is starting to adapt to the rhythm — made a bit more flexible to survive bad weather days and the occasional minor flu.
I also tried to find joy during my last long run.
Followed all the advice from fellow Facebook runners:
- warm hat ✅
- sunny day ✅
- smiling at people on the track (there were two) ✅
Nothing worked.
Until I met a duck.
It was sitting right in the middle of the path and had absolutely no intention of moving.
I named it Joy.
🦆
1st week
First week, first lesson: winter running sucks.
Or rather—I was doing it wrong. According to my personal trainer (AI):
The goal isn’t to enjoy winter; it’s to get through it with consistency.
The first part is going well. The second isn’t bad either—21 km this week is a solid start—but I can already feel I’m stressing my body a bit too much. Not at the muscle level, but the combination of cold air, rain, and all the viruses floating around puts extra pressure on the immune system.
I’ll make some adjustments to the schedule to ease that load.
Still—so far, so good. Only 19 weeks to go 😄
Goal
3:45 in Utrecht. End of May.
This is it — 20 weeks to go.
That means preparation moves from idea to reality.
The training plan is ready. I tried to build one with AI, but it quickly drifted into extremes. So I did what has always worked best: downloaded something reasonable from the internet and trusted experience over theory.
I really hope the parcours stays the same as last year and they don’t return to the two-lap idea. It’s enough that Utrecht already gives you brutally hard final kilometers. The city lifts you up — and then lets you go. Last kilometers your run towards campus almost alone.
I wish I could say that after last time — a muscle strain that ended my spring half marathon — I’m wiser now. That I know what I’m doing.
The truth is: I don’t.
I’ve never trained seriously for a spring race before. And so far, the only thing I’ve learned is that cold weather — and lately even snow — makes everything harder.
But if you want to run, you have to start running.
So… off we go.
Photo taken after the first interval training — the moment you realize how much work really lies ahead. And the long runs haven’t even started yet.
End of year
2025 comes to an end.
Some people write summaries.
Some make plans.
I take a moment to look back.
What I see makes me happy—and grateful.
Grateful for the moments I was allowed to share this year.
For the support of my family, neighbours, and colleagues.
For every donation and every kind word.
For the anonymous donation that made reaching the 2025 goal possible.
And for a small moment today that says a lot about why this project exists:
an older man at the train station saw me stretching, stopped, and asked if everything was okay —
worried I might be injured.
(Apparently cold air and 3 km can look like real pain.)
Nothing special.
No big story.
Just attention.
Just care for another human.
First run
29 December 2025.
An ordinary afternoon run.
Cold air, but not too cold to breathe.
No people around—everyone busy buying fireworks for New Year’s Eve.
A standard route. The Ka path (a name probably given by some Stephen King fans).
Yet it is somehow special, as it will be tagged as the first run of many more to come.
Five months to prepare for another 42k.
I am not excited. I think about the hard work that will have to be done.
About injuries. About recovery. About all the times my own stupidity kept me out of a race.
Yes, there is a lot of time to think during an ordinary afternoon run.
But running is not about thinking.
It’s about movement.
One run. Then another.
Cold or not. Motivated or not.
And this was just the first.
Run 4 PMC 