Preparing for a marathon after a break of a few years is like making the impossible probable. I think I can do it continuing my current prep, but it won’t be easy, since I don’t have a knack for running long distances. But then, it’s never easy to run such long distances however well-prepped one is.

If you only have the one iPhone, repair is a total PIA. It seems like Apple security makes the iPhone’s owner feel totally insecure, while for thieves it’s probably business as usual. Got a confirm-you-still-own-your-phone while I had to remove it from Find My for repair yesterday. This sucks.

After three weeks of marathon prep with 68, 80 and 87 km respectively, I’m about to do an “easy” week, with only 66 km of running. Less than nine weeks to go before the big event. Furthermore, I found I need to do two sessions of strength training each week to compensate for aging (I’m 64).

I got a substantial price increase on my Dutch managed Wordpress subscription with domain name. I checked a similar hosting provider, and (without the first-year’s rebate) that one was even pricier. I suppose managing WP is rather labor-intensive with a (nowadays) relentless attack by bad actors.

I miss @jean as a community manager. Nowadays days go by before I check the Timeline, only to be disappointed yet again by a lack of fun content.

I wondered if a new GoPro Hero 13 with a selfie stick would be a valuable addition to my Dutch running blog. So I tried the slo motion function of my aging iPhone SE (2020). I’m sure I’d need practice and a more interesting ambiance. Running faster than 5:15 min/km (8:25 mpm) pace should help too.

Yesterday I entered as a participant to the Marathon Rotterdam on April 13, 2025. I had to be quick, because all 17,000 starting tickets sold out in 2½ hours.

All I have to do now is get into shape and train the heck out of this old body that will have turned 65 on race day.

Another long(ish) run to improve my marathon shape. Most of it (16 km) was on sand paths and rough terrain. The pace was eight percent slower than my currently expected marathon pace. The marathon will be on November 24, 2024.

If you’re going to lie, do so fast and loud, and most will believe you. Ask any teenager or demagogue.

Yesterday I noticed pain in my achilles tendon, so I decided to replace some running by cycling. I recorded using a triathlon app on my watch. Two things went wrong. I accidentally wiped the activity, but, worse, I underestimated the bike ride and the heat. It was too long and too fast. 🏃‍♂️🚴‍♂️

Do you ever find yourself writing a blog article, only to realize it exposes 😳 your lack of knowledge and experience? Maybe I’m being cynical at my age, but most of my blog posts nowadays die in the trash 🗑️ before they are released to the world. How about you? Is your trash full of “bad” posts?
✍️🤯

I’m looking for inspiration by following marathon runners on Strava. Got discouraged by a member of my T&F club, who claimed she could run a marathon on 27 km per week as a base, because she wasn’t able to put in the time. Alas, she’s not the only member who lost respect for the marathon.
🏃

I drafted a blog post about interval training, let someone read it, and came to the conclusion I don’t know enough to write a coherent piece. Also, formulas seem to induce eyerolling in most readers. It’s better to create a narrative, since more people are able to follow along than with math(s).

People who install a renewable energy based home powerplant to deal with power outages are missing an essential point. If a lot of home owners did that, grid stability will decrease and more outages will occur, since avoiding power outages requires regional control, not just local home control.

Last Saturday I did a 30 km training run as a (300 m run, 100 m walk) run-walk-run in 3h38m, about 50% slower than my fastest ever 30 km race in 2016. Corrected for heart rate it’s only 25% slower, and for weight 10% slower. That difference could be largely explained by the walking. 🏃‍♂️

Currently uploading my training data from a Garmin Connect archive to my Runalyze training data. There was 7 years of training data missing since I started using Runalyze (it only imports the previous three months from the moment you subscribe). That’s a lot of files to process!

On social networks I always worry to possibly overstep any boundaries of etiquette, what the other person can put up with, or, more importantly, providing bystanders who are into stirring up controversy and putting words out of context, with the words to do just that.

My blog post became so macro, I had to create a draft and edit the source text while reading the draft on micro∙blog. My idea to publish monthly instead of weekly has made my posts grow to extremes.

It has been an eventful week for me, running-wise. It was the first time in a while I trained 6 days out of 7. I also ran a 10K race more than 2 minutes faster than a month ago. I didn’t prep for the race; it was a bit of a fun diversion from regular training. My weekly mileage’ll be 47 mi (76 km).

I just published my 999th post in exactly 16 years on my Dutch language personal running blog. It supposedly consists of 683,057 words, with an average of 683 words per (certainly not micro-) post.