Friday morning I did a short run and finished it off with a fastish km at about HM pace. My next task was to start some carb loading and I find PSP22 is really good for this as your get good carb bang for your buck and your body doesn’t have to deal with too many extras. In the past I have gone a bit crazy on the carb loading front but this time I was a bit more subtle about it so didn’t feel too stuffed. I finished packing and then set off for the train to the airport where I was meeting Dave Alcock en-route. We got to the airport and after getting through security and various other slow moving queues we parked up in the BA lounge and made sure we were well fed and stocked up with some jaffa cakes. Ate some more, drank some more, and then got our flight to Amsterdam. Nothing too exciting happened on board which is probably for the best. Next we headed to the race hotel to set up camp and find someone official looking so we could sort out our numbers. We’d had limited confirmation about our numbers (mine was just verbal) so wanted to get them in our hands so we could relax a bit. Trouble is, when we went to the guy that “knew” about us, he kinda didn’t know about us! Well, he probably did know about us but we were just small fish. Also, not wanting to throw stereotypes around but I think a consequence of being Dutch is that they tend to be very relaxed about things, I wonder why;) We left our names and were told that we’d get our numbers the next day after the technical meeting, good enough for me! We grabbed some dinner and eyed up the “competition” which looked to be entirely Kenyan and Ethiopian. We didn’t hang around too long and headed back to our room to get a good night’s sleep.

I had a good sleep which was aided by an eye mask and my trusty ear plugs. After waking up we got some warm gear on (gloves, hat, jacket) and went for an easy jog. It was only 2 miles and I felt ok on it but not great, not as bouncy and fresh as I’d hope for, I guess I was still waking up a bit and I’m usually quite sluggish early on. Went and got some breakfast and then went for a bit of a walk down to the expo. It was about 2 miles so nice to get out in the fresh air and be moving around. The expo wasn’t anything too exciting though the highlight had to be the Saucony stand which had a recovery body suit which is infused with 13 natural minerals. I was surprised they didn’t also align the ions in your body;) I just went to the expo to meet up with John from Mizuno as they were going to sort me out with some kit for the race but it was back at the hotel so I’d have to collect it later. Whilst there he called over his camera man and I got to do a little pre race interview which was fun as I completely ballsed up the intro and got them to do it again! Anyway, when asked about what time I was hoping to run I said something like “2:18, 2:19, I just want to get under 2:20 really”. We then walked back to the hotel and no surprises what happened next…lunch time so we ate some more food!

We sifted around and relaxed a bit until 5pm which is when the technical meeting was on. We got there and realised we’d forgotten our passports (not sure why they were required, maybe confirm DoB?) so had to rush back to the room to get them. No rushing was needed though as these guys that can run 2:05 don’t seem to be able to walk very fast or get anywhere on time. They ran through the normal details about the course, pacing, drinks, timings of the day etc. After it was finished we eventually collected our numbers and I got my kit off John. We also got our passports back which was quite amusing as we just said our passports were the one with the fat photos as both Dave and my passport photos were taken a few years before we were runners so they look a bit chunky;) When we went back to the room I did a makeshift job of washing my vest in the sink with some shampoo and then wore it for the rest of the evening to dry it out. Good lesson learnt to wash a new vest before wearing it courtesy of "England Vest" vs "Steve Way's nipples" in Toronto. Safe to say that Steve's nipples were the loser on the day;) It was now time for some more food so we went and had some dinner. Didn't hang around long and then went back to the room and sorted out our gear for the morning and set our alarms for 5:40am so we could get up for an early morning jog to help wake up. Had an ok sleep but woke up 3 or 4 times to check the time as I’m always paranoid about either sleeping through the alarm or setting it incorrectly so it doesn’t go off!