Making the shortish trip across the Channel courtesy of Euro Tunnel, Roland and Martin ably backed up by Carol, competed in the 10K and ½ Marathon Races on the Saturday afternoon. Arriving mid afternoon on Friday after driving for most of the journey in torrential rain, it was decided to pick up the numbers shortly afterwards. The e-mail told us to go to the registration point in the garage under the Park - about 10 minutes from the hotel.. When we got their, nobody was about, only the car park attendants, who knew nothing. We made our way back to the finish - only 5 minutes from the hotel! to find out that they were giving out some numbers in the VIP tent. We made our way to the front of the queue only to be told to go to another queue for "the invited " runners.

Now there was only one man helping at the desk and already there were a dozen or so people firing off questions to him. When we finally got through, he hadn't got our numbers - they were still in a box in his car. So he had to go off and get them. In the meantime we decided to sit down.

Mistake number 1. By now the queue had grown and he appeared to have forgotten all about us. After about 10 minutes we went back to him to jog his memory. Lucky we did as he had got carried away with all the other people. Unfortunately the box with our numbers in was not in numerical order, only name order, but he had no check list to make sure we were in the box. So we had to wait while he went through each envelope before he finally got to ours.

Mistake number 2. I know had to explain to him that I had been injured and was not going to run the Half, but opt for the 10K instead. I had visions of been sent to the back of the queue, but no, he just took my envelope back, threw it into another box, that contained some other numbers and said that this was for the 10K. Hmmmm I thought, but you haven't taken my details down to notify the change. OK we will pay anyway.

Mistake number 3.Martin's entry cost 80 guilders, with 50 back for return of the chip and mine was just 15 guilders. Now just having arrived, we didn't have the exact change. We now had to wait another 5 minutes before we were finally sorted out. I was glad we sorted out our numbers before the race, as picking them up on race morning could have been a nightmare. Mind you it wasn't over yet.............The races themselves were enjoyable - the courses being pancake flat. I got some stick for my 10K time of 40½ minutes - but I was coming back from a calf injury. Martin would have liked to have been quicker, but his 1:19 was good enough for 115th place

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Roland approaching the final straight

No,the final problem we encountered was trying to give back the championship chip that Martin used. After he finished there wasn't any body to take his chip back and several runners came through the finish funnel still wearing them. Having gone back in to the finish area we managed to find two girls sitting by a box that some runners were putting their chips in. We asked them about getting Martin's money back but they didn't seem to know, but pointed to another marshal who might be able to help. We were told to go back to the garage on the Park and we would be sorted out and with that she gave us a piece of paper that we would have to exchange for our money! So having given the chip back at the finish, received a piece of paper in return, we made our way back to the start. Eventually we got our money back, but felt more exhausted by trying to sort it out than running the races.

Rounding the last bend............		Could have done better?

Despite all this it was a great day, it probably seemed more chaotic than it really was, as they do run 4 races. But I will be back next year - to run in the Half, like I was supposed to. Besides, I didn't see everything I wanted to in Amsterdam on the Sunday.

Roland		Carol		Martin

31/03/01 - Richard Greenhalf crowned winner!