{"id":4326,"date":"2018-05-20T20:00:38","date_gmt":"2018-05-20T18:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/?p=4326"},"modified":"2018-05-20T20:00:38","modified_gmt":"2018-05-20T18:00:38","slug":"marathon-walk-to-schoorl-sunday-20-may-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2018\/05\/20\/marathon-walk-to-schoorl-sunday-20-may-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Marathon walk to Schoorl, Sunday 20 May 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

I got up early and left the house a few minutes after 06:00. The weather forecast was fine and sunny, with the temperature expected to hit 22\u00b0C in the afternoon, but at 06:00 it was misty and cool. The roads were dead quiet that time in the morning anyway, but the mist made the first few hours of the walk extra still. It wasn’t a pea-souper; just dense enough for towers and pylons to drift in and out of sight, and for wisps to gather and swirl lazily over the glass-flat canals.<\/p>\n

\"Prins<\/a>
Prins Bernhardbrug, Zaandam<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"View<\/a>
View of Cargill Gerkens Cacao factory from the Willem Alexanderbrug in Zaandam<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Ship<\/a>
Ship moored at the Lagedijk, Zaandam<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Zaan<\/a>
Zaan view at Wormerveer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I walked north-west through Zaandam, Koog aan de Zaan, Wormerveer, along the edge of Markenbinnen, then over the polder to Alkmaar, then finally out to Schoorldam and Schoorl. I hit marathon distance in Schoorldam in 7h 31m, which is a personal best. Apart from wanting to try out my new shoes today, I also wanted to do the walk at a fast pace, just to see what kind of time I could put down. That didn’t quite<\/em> work out, because I couldn’t stop myself from stopping to take a bunch of pictures along the way. I also spent the first hour stopping a lot to adjust my laces, because I just couldn’t get comfortable with the racer’s loop<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My right foot is slightly smaller than my left. Although my left foot was mostly snug with standard lacing, I could feel my right heel slipping. But when I did<\/em> tie the right up more tightly, it was painful across the bridge of my foot. I could feel a blister forming on my heel by the end of the first hour, and I regretted taking a new pair of shoes out for a long walk without breaking them in first. I’ll know better next time.<\/p>\n

Time-wise, I think I could easily cut off 10 minutes with broken-in shoes and better discipline. With more training, I could probably get my average pace up, too, and take the time down to 7 hours (about 6 km\/hour). But that’s not what I’m about. I do big walks to prove to myself that I can do a slow marathon with no preparation beyond bringing enough drinks to stay hydrated; and I really enjoy taking pictures of interesting things along the way. I’m not going to force myself on joyless marches.<\/p>\n

\"Wormerveer<\/a>
Wormerveer panorama<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Starnmeerpolder\"<\/a>
Periodic reminder that Noord-Holland is really flat…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"View<\/a>
…and wet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Alkmaar\"
Alkmaar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Crow
Large crow silhouette weathervane in Schoorl, near the N9<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I messaged Abi near the end of the walk, and she drove out to Schoorl to meet me for a mid-afternoon coffee. (It was another 2.4km past Schoorldam, giving me a total distance of 44.6km for the day.) I’ve never been to Schoorl<\/a> before, but maps showed several caf\u00e9s in the centre. It’s right next to the coastal dunes, and they have the Netherlands’ tallest sand dune (the Klimduin<\/a>) that runs right down to the village centre, which is pretty cool. A slice of apple pie was a welcome treat to finish the walk.<\/p>\n

\"Martin<\/a>
Obligatory finish line selfie. Look at that puffy face!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Klimduin<\/a>
Klimduin in Schoorl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"apple
Apple pie reward<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I walked to Schoorl today, just over standard marathon distance. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1819,13,1773],"tags":[1825,1780],"class_list":["post-4326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathons","category-photos","category-walks","tag-marathon","tag-walk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4326"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4353,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326\/revisions\/4353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}