There were no flights directly to Eindhoven so instead I flew into Amsterdam and then took the train 1½ hours to Eindhoven with a change in Rotterdam. It made getting back and forth a bit more complicated but the trains were on time and it was a comfortable ride, so there was no issue. Arriving in Eindhoven it took less than 10 minutes to locate my hotel where I checked in and claiming my room that turned out to overlook the finishing area of the race, and soon after I left to go to the Technical University where I picked up my bib and shirt. As it was getting late and dark I wandered about for a bit and realized that the city seemed to enjoy Italian and Japanese food, so I ended up in a ramen place where I started off with some Takoyaki before having a delicious bowl of ramen. Not having any desserts (what?!) I left and had a quick visit to a kiosk to bring some back home to the hotel. You can’t have dinner without dessert when you’re on vacation!
The next day I had a walk outside the center of the city and realized how correct it was when reading on travelling sites saying that Eindhoven isn’t really a tourist destination. I therefore returned to the center where I spent time visiting the DAF and Philips museum. The former had a bunch of vehicles presented from throughout the history of the company and while there was no real walkthrough of the history of the company itself the descriptive plaques for the vehicles combined gave a fairly good overview of the company, too. The Philips museum focused on the company’s foundation, the light bulb, the later years’ development of hospital technology and more recently the implementation of AI. The average consumer only see a fraction of what Philips do – and the home appliance divisions have mostly been sold off or split into other companies; focus now is health technology (ultrasound, respiratory care, radiography and lots of other fancy stuff). They have also helped found – among other things – ASML which is one of the world’s main suppliers to semiconductor industries around the world, supplying equipment for chip production. It’s some serious high-tech stuff, and together with numerous other high tech industries in the city it has made Eindhoven a major tech hubs in Europe.
The starting area was only a 10 minute walk from the hotel, on the opposite side of the station, on Montgomerylaan. While the street was wide they only used on side for the runners which meant that the starting area was stretched quite a bit. But all was good and we were off on time – just before the starting line we were squeezed together to half width and while annoying and stopping the flow it meant that it helped spreading the runners over a larger distance, loosening up the group and not having a too crowded start.
The course generally consisted of long stretches with not too many turns which meant it was easy to get into a zen mood without having to focus on constant making turns and positioning yourself optimally. It wasn’t until around 30km we started making more regular turns. Going north on Montgomerylaan we made our first turn down Winston Churchilllaan, circling around Luytelaer before returning west and going up along Henri Dunantpark. From here we headed west until we ran south down along the airport until reaching the High Tech Campus which we circled (the place seemed huge!) before taking a quick nip down into Voldijn before returning north and finishing in the city center, almost right outside my hotel.
The cheering was limited along the course, you met them in groups near stations and intersections, but getting back into the city the energy was high. Also, the last couple of hundred meters we merged with the half-marathon course which suddenly made otherwise nice conditions very cramped. It was manageable considering the relative short distance and you could distract yourself with the onlookers. Unfortunately I didn’t quite avoid the hand-on-shoulder push-you-aside runner a few meters before the finish line – hurray for you, you gained 3 seconds! (he turned out to be a double-dick as he was also the type that just completely stopped the second he crossed the line).
I managed to finish in 3:53:43, a very respectable time, my 4th fastest marathon time. I came in as 2340 out of 4356 overall (top 53,72%), 2065 out of 3635 men (top 56,81%) and 331 out of 501 M40 (top 66,07%). A surprisingly fast group of runners I would have thought my relative result would have been better. I was a very flat course, though, with 48m up and a little less down over the entire course.
Getting back to the hotel was a completely different challenge, though. I could look right up at it but we got channeled past, split up in half and full runners, and we, the full marathoners had out exit in front of the station. Getting back to the hotel was wild. It was crowded getting out because of all the +1s waiting for runners, and then getting across 18 Septemberplein was nearly impossible as that was where the half marathoners exited, and that was a significantly bigger group of people with their +1s waiting. The down Hermanus Boexstraat which turned out to be the last stretch of the half marathon meaning the sidewalks were packed. It took me close to an hour walking the 1km back to the hotel. It was absolutely maddening.
Had a shower (it was a bathtub with a shower – it’s never fun getting into one of them after a run) before going out and had a pile of fries before settling in in my room and only moving again to go out for dinner.
The following day was spent in the hotel before leaving for the station and taking the trains back to Amsterdam and flying home.
Full album can be seen here.
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