{"id":4209,"date":"2010-04-12T12:08:36","date_gmt":"2010-04-12T10:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/?p=4209"},"modified":"2010-05-31T22:51:40","modified_gmt":"2010-05-31T20:51:40","slug":"rotterdam-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/archives\/4209","title":{"rendered":"Rotterdam Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"

For all the years I\u2019ve been living here I\u2019ve never once bothered to go check out the Rotterdam Marathon.\u00a0 It just wasn\u2019t something I was interested in at all.\u00a0 This year I thought I would go and watch, partly because I\u2019m hellbent on getting out and being more involved in things that go on here, but also because I have a better camera<\/a> now and was interested in taking photos.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t sure what time to go over to the area where they\u2019d be passing through our neighbourhood. \u00a0We knew the race started at 11am and we are at the 10k mark, so surely it would be a few hours.\u00a0 That\u2019s how my brain processed it, biking 10k takes me ages, so running must take dogs ages<\/em>. \u00a0I forgot that not everyone runs around on short little roly-poly legs like me.<\/p>\n

I also underestimated the Kenyans.\u00a0 Those guys run like someone just shot a bullet up their ass.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

When the race started I was watching on TV and thought ok I have a little while they are just leaving the city center now.\u00a0 Then five minutes later it was like, holy shit they\u2019re at the stadium already!!\u00a0 Just to give you an idea, walking from the center to the stadium would take me about 3 hours, 2 pairs of shoes, 4 bottles of water and possibly an ambulance. \u00a0Ok, maybe not quite that bad but there would definitely be whining involved.<\/p>\n

\"Filming\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We threw on our clothes and hoofed it out the door.\u00a0 We weren\u2019t far from the area they passed by, only about a five minute walk, but it was clear that these people move at superhuman speeds and I didn\u2019t want to risk missing the beginning.\u00a0 I wanted to get photos of the guys who were leading the pack, but I also wanted to get on TV!!\u00a0 As you can see in the above photo the dude was too busy watching me to film me and when he did finally get his head back in the game you could only see us from behind.\u00a0 I know this because we left so quickly we forgot to turn off the TV, so when we got home I hit rewind and went back to when they went by us. All you saw was my leg and the back of Xander\u2019s head.\u00a0 Bummer\u2026\u00a0 I was going to take a photo of my momentary leg fame on the TV but as I was trying to get it paused at the right spot our cable box crashed and I lost it.\u00a0 Typical.<\/p>\n

\"You<\/a><\/p>\n

Those guys didn\u2019t get us on TV either.\u00a0 Slackers.<\/p>\n

I got quite a good spot to take photos.\u00a0 I went to a cross walk and stood on the area that was just inside the barrier so I could get them as they were coming towards me.\u00a0 It was awesome!\u00a0 I never thought watching people run could be so much fun, but it actually was.\u00a0 Not sure if I\u2019d have found it as exciting if I didn\u2019t have my camera with me though, that tends to add an extra bit of enjoyment to everything for me.<\/p>\n

Here are some of my favorite photos from the day, for the rest you can check my Flickr Set<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Funny<\/a><\/p>\n

How many funny faces can you fit in one marathon photo? Lots!\u00a0 That\u2019s one of the best things about a marathon, I\u2019ve learned. \u00a0People are tired, stressed, happy, excited and you get to capture it all.\u00a0 I love photographing people and this makes for a great opportunity for that.\u00a0 This photo made me chuckle a little because everyone in it is pulling some sort of weird face.<\/p>\n

\"Opa\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The 10k mark was where the relay runners switched.\u00a0 This man was greeted excitedly by his family and the little girl, whom I assume is his granddaughter, was most proud of all.<\/p>\n

\"Green\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I found myself being sort of fascinated by their legs and feet.\u00a0 I guess it\u2019s because they are so powerful and lean.\u00a0 I also just dug this dude\u2019s socks.\u00a0 It took me back to the 80\u2019s when I was rocking the white pants, hot pink suspenders, green socks, yellow belt and my favorite pair of jelly shoes.<\/p>\n

\"Inspiration\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In amongst the pattering of sneakers against the pavement, I heard a faint clicking noise.\u00a0 As it got closer I realized what it was I was hearing.\u00a0 This man had just run 10k, and was probably continuing on to do more, with only one leg.\u00a0 I missed a lot of the upcoming runners as I mentally berated myself for complaining so much about how hard some of the things are that I have the privilege of doing on two legs.<\/p>\n

\"Smiling\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Smiling\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This man stood out to me out of the hundreds who ran by.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know who he is or what he does.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know where he comes from, who his family are or what is going on in his life right now.\u00a0 All I know was that when I watched him he looked so happy. Was he happy because this marathon was a dream of his?\u00a0 Was he happy because he was running the 10k and saw the end in sight?\u00a0 Who knows\u2026 but he made me smile and whatever made him so happy made me happy for<\/em> him.\u00a0 He\u2019s one of those random strangers, like this guy<\/a>, that I will come back to and ponder on from time to time and wonder who he was.<\/p>\n

\"Running<\/a><\/p>\n

You know the guy with one leg? Well, take what I said then and put it here only about eyes.\u00a0 The lady with the flowers was being interviewed for TV because she is blind, and with the help of her running partner on her right, she had just completed the 10k portion of the race.\u00a0 How awesome is that?!<\/p>\n

\"Water<\/a><\/p>\n

As the crowd of runners thinned out at the end, the water boys and girls became amusingly competitive about who would get to pass the water.\u00a0 Running ahead of each other, joking and trying to get the runners\u2019 attention and being generally comical.\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty sure the runners always went for whichever was first within reach.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

As we were walking home I was thinking that I was sure glad it wasn\u2019t me who had to clean up.\u00a0 The entire road around the 10k mark was completely covered in these little cups.\u00a0 Those marathon runners are such litterbugs!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For all the years I\u2019ve been living here I\u2019ve never once bothered to go check out the Rotterdam Marathon.\u00a0 It just wasn\u2019t something I was interested in at all.\u00a0 This year I thought I would go and watch, partly because I\u2019m hellbent on getting out and being more involved in things that go on here, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,49],"tags":[73,535,530,289],"class_list":["post-4209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-life-in-nl","category-photography","tag-rotterdam","tag-rotterdam-marathon","tag-sports","tag-strangers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4209"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5073,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4209\/revisions\/5073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}