Over the last year I have spoken to various parkrunners who were planning to be in Amsterdam over marathon weekend, all of whom were also planning to make complicated train journeys to other towns in order to tick off a ‘Z’. I am (apparently) one of those rare parkrunners who doesn’t give a toss about the ‘parkrun alphabet’, so I was happy to check out the nearest parkrun to the city centre. Amsterdamse Bos was a metro ride + 2ish mile walk from our hotel, and there were plenty of other parkrunners to chat to (and get a bit lost following) during those two miles.
‘It’s a bit “Brits abroad”,’ said Geth, apparently having forgotten that most non-British parkruns we’ve done have been like that.
It felt like there were thousands of people there, but in the results it was just under 600. It’s a lovely course but not quite built for those numbers (thankfully it seemingly only happens once a year and the team did appear to be very prepared!).
The out-and-back path at the end was also so blanketed in autumn leaves that you couldn’t see the tarmac and I was glad to be taking it easy! A really pretty one. I’ll be back if I find myself in Amsterdam again.