Alex Reuneker

How to run a track marathon without an athletics track around? Number 2 in the 'doing crazy stuff' category: this Saturday, 7 February 2026, I went out early in the morning to do the 42K long run in preparation of the Zestig van Texel (60K). Of course I smuggled that 200m in to make it a marathon distance.

My wife ran the 30K Groet uit Schoorl run the day after in preparation of the Rotterdam Marathon in April. We had to leave somewhat early on Saturday, to make sure our son could still get his much needed sleep in the nice B&B we booked, Hoeve te Gast, around lunch time. It therefore was especially helpful to go for an early run today, although the initial plan was to do my long run in Schoorl – it is so beautiful out there! However, that would require even more planning, and it would have to be later in the afternoon. I find that suboptimal to say the least, because I know I'd be dreading it all morning.

The long runs for the Zestig van Texel are getting really long now, and I feel I have to keep things fun and a bit crazy. As the treadmill marathon two weeks ago was a fun experiment, I thought I'd do another somewhat crazy challenge. So, as I want to do a marathon on an athletics track someday in the future, but I don't have a track really close to home, I thought I could do approximately 105 laps of 400m around the house, as I have used this 'track' before to do a test run for the beer mile last year.

A lot of laps around the house add up to 42.2K (for privacy, I blackened out the street names)

It's kind of nice that I have exactly a 400 lap around the house. This seemed like a fun challenge, it was convenient to not waste time, and, certainly not unimportantly, I could easily set up food and drinks in my garden. As I started before 7 am, it was also nice to see the sun rise and the neighbourhood awaken. (Some neighbours must have found it a bit weird to see me pass their house many, many times.) It was an efficient training, and although I won't be doing this again anytime soon, I really, thoroughly enjoyed it; it was fun to count laps instead of kilometers (I set auto lap on my Garmin at 400m, which worked quite well – I had to take the opposite street sometimes to correct for some cut-offs, but that was totally fine), it felt easy to maintain good endurance pace, and I felt like I still had a decent amount of energy left at the end. To prevent problems from the 105.5 x four corners, I changed direction each 25 laps, which also helped mentally – I counted laps until change of direction, which felt easier than having to think about doing more than 100 laps. This was, apart from the physical training, also a really good mental training, I think. I did not listen to any music and I had no other distractions than coming up with new counting games along the way.

The final figures

For those interested, here are all the laps.

105 laps (and a bit...)

All in all, this 105.5 x 400m marathon gave me a really good feeling and upon completing the 105.5 laps (42.23K in 03:08:16; 4:28 min/km), I could only smile. Then, head of in kind of a rush to the shower and off to Schoorl!

A convenient place to store some food and drinks

Note 1: The real initial plan was to run the Coast Marathon Nationaal Park Hollandse Duinen that Saturday, which seemed like a good preparation for the Zestig van Texel. However, it was not only a hassle to organise in the same weekend as the Groet uit Schoorl run, but I found it really too expensive. Not only the ticket was too expensive for my taste (85 euro), but after clicking through numerous screens and filling in a lot of forms, I also had to buy a national park ticket (or whatever it was) and an expensive parking ticket. That just did it for me – running does really seem too get expensive lately and I found this too much for what is was.

Note 2: As our son sleeps in the same room, we went to bed very early on Saturday. I woke up very early too, so after some tossing and turning, I decided to slip on the running shoes around 6 am and go out for a recovery run, which I would have done in the afternoon at home otherwise. Although it was still dark and there was little lighting on the streets and cycling paths, I really enjoyed running here, and the legs felt a bit stiff after yesterday's marathon, but nothing noteworthy and that gave me a confidence.

Groeten uit Groet ('Greetings from Groet')

The surroundings were beautiful, very quite still and the second half of the 10K run, I ran on the route my wife would run later that day. It's always fun to see the barriers on the roads, the brand advertisements and kilometer signs along the way!

On Saturday May 15th, one of my running mates at RA and I organised a trail run in Leende, Brabant, just south of Eindhoven. As the pandemic is still with us, we kept it small and easy by inviting only our group members and using gpx files for navigation. Ten people participated, and it was a day to remember!

The runners at the start of the Leenderbostrail

The courses

We offered routes of 22K, 32K, and 42K, but there was also a 52K ultra trail. All routes were almost exclusively on non-paved surfaces like single tracks and forest paths.

I doubted between doing the 32K and the 42K, because technically I'm still recovering from my 2:46 PB on the marathon last month. However, two of the other runners opted for the 52K and eventually I decided, 15 minutes prior to the start, to join them.

The 52K route

A 52K ultra (or, as someone called it, a 'baby ultra')

Although I did taper a bit last week, and I carb-loaded (though not as extensively as last month), this was no perfect preparation, of course. I did not regret it, however! The running went smooth, we enjoyed the forests, paths and company. Apart from one very heavy shower, the weather was quite nice. There were very, very muddy parts, and one part in which the water came up to our ankles, but in retrospect those things are part of the fun. The route wasn't correct all the time and we had to reroute a number of times, but luckily one of us had a Garmin Forerunner 945 with maps, so I had just to follow along. Navigation has never been my strong suit...

The 52K group after the trail run

I think the hardest part for me was between 40 and 45K. After that, I was able to speed up the pace again, but I just hit that largely mental point at which I struggled to find joy in what I was doing. Although running together for 52K is great the whole time, for me, these are the times running in a small group keeps me focused. I think one of the other two runners also hit the same point, but later on, just when I got out of it. To be honest, I definitely was the weakest runner of the three, at least when looking at race times, so I couldn't help but feeling I held them up a bit, but they denied that, and apart from that, this was no race. (However, as many runners, I do want to keep a certain pace, of course, which we managed.)

In the end, we finished the 52.1K in 4:05:04, with an average pace of 4:42 per kilometre (that's 7:34 per mile).

51.1K

Given the unpaved, slippery and sometimes rough terrain with and really deep puddles and mudd, I'm very happy with that.

It was quite muddy out there...

Still great shoes, those New Balance Minimus Trail editions

Afterwards

We bought some pre- and post-run snacks for the group, and my wife offered to bake quinoa-blueberry power bars from Donna Hay, which were delicious.

Sticky and delicious

All in all, it was not only great to complete a 52K trail run together, but also to have a day off together, and to enjoy running, company and snacks together!

Post-run stretching and eating