Race report: Challenge Almere Amsterdam 2026, 12 september 2026 — first full distance, 11:38:37

Splits

* Swim 3.8 km — 1:16:22 (2:01/100 m)
* T1 — 5:26
* Bike 180 km — 5:35:44 (32.1 km/h)
* T2 — 5:52
* Run 42.2 km — 4:35:15 (6:24/km on the 43 km the mats recorded)
* Total 11:38:37 — 411/729 overall, 28/48 in M20–24

Plan was 11:42:52, target was sub-12. Came in 4:15 under my own plan and 21 minutes under the target.



Background

23, Dutch, no coach, no club. Engineering master's part-time plus two jobs, busy social life, so training had to fit around whatever the week allowed rather than the other way around. I had a decent run base and basically nothing else: I could not swim properly, and I'd never ridden a road race or TT bike.

I started logging training in October 2025, but those first months was a guy who lifted three times a week and went running. The first swim in my log is late November and the first bike is December. I only actually signed up for Almere once I knew I enjoyed biking; around February. So call it seven months of triathlon focused training, on top of a running base I already had.



I tracked every session for 48 weeks. The totals:

* 329 hours across 284 sessions
* 1,212 km run
* 130 hours on the bike
* 94.9 km swum
* 76 strength sessions, almost all of them in the first half

7.3 hours per week on average over that whole timeframe. Only in the last month did I get 12 h/week, and my single biggest week was 17.2 hours with two back-to-back long rides three weeks out (went on a cycling trip to Belgium with friends).

It was also not a clean build. Three weeks were flat zeros — Christmas in Puglia, a ski week, a holiday in the Basque Country. Three exam periods each knocked a week down. And I spent most of February sick with a cold that would not go away.

I used the 220 Triathlon 6-month long-distance plan as a skeleton and then ignored it whenever life got in the way, which was way too often. I don't think that cost me much. Looking bad at it, it's a shitty plan anyway.



Race day

I had a good carb load of about 12g/kg the two days before. Managed to go to sleep at abt 22:30 despite some race day nerves, and woke up at 5am to get to the start at 07:40.



Swim. 1:16 and 315th out of the water, which is the best I performed all day relative to the field. Wetsuit, head down, sighting every eight strokes or so. I imprinted on a guy with a recognisable white wetsuit and got in his draft. I kind of feel bad about it, since I must have touched his toes at least a hundred times over the course of 60+ minutes, but I came out feeling like I'd done nothing and put in a decent time. I did feel super wobbly and disorientated though for the first 2 minutes out of the water.



Bike. This was the good leg. 32.1 km/h for 5:35, about seven minutes faster than planned, on a 2019 rim-brake Speed Concept with aerobars I'd only properly set up in August (all local bikefitters were fully booked for basically the whole summer). Fuelling was a little over 120 g of carbs an hour, mostly liquid ISO, plus some dry cookies and 2 gels. Zero stomach issues the whole day, which I'd put down almost entirely to having practised that exact protocol on every long ride from June onwards. Nothing new on race day, in the most boring possible sense.

We did two laps of 90k each through the barren polders of Flevoland. On the second half of the bike ride the wind really picked up. From about 100k to 120k, over the Oostvaardersdijk, we had the wind blowing directly from behind. This is where I noticed a lot of people trying to make up time we were about to loose in the headwind we were about to face. I took this stretch to get my hr down and to mentally prepare for the hard times that were to come. This strategy worked out, as, in the 60kms that followed, I picked off everyone who had just flown by me, one by one.



Run. 4:35 for the marathon, 6:24/km, about four and a half minutes slower than plan. I ran 3:53 standalone in March. Forty-two minutes is a big tax to pay for having ridden 180 km first.

I lost about a hundred places over the day and the majority of them went on the run. Legs weren't cramping, fuelling was fine at 80 g/h, HR was where I wanted it. However, knowing I was well under my 12h target kind of slowed me down. And I had a lot of supporters along the sideline, stopping for a minute on each of the four 10k laps to have a bit of a pep talk. This made the run probably the most fun discipline of the day, but this is also where I left a lot of time on the table.



Transitions. T1 and T2 both went super smooth and took me about 5 minutes; however most of this time went into running from A to B since the transition area was setup quite spaceous. I don't see how I could save much more time here except if I went absolutely sprinting.



What I'd change

Honestly, for a first timer chasing a finish and wanting to have a fun day, I feel like my training packed out exactly the way it should. Maybe I'd do some more 25k+ sessions during the build since I did leave a lot of time on the table on the marathon.

Would I recommend it on avg 7-12 hours a week? Yes! I managed training around a busy schedule and never cancelled a night out with friends for a training session. I got to the finish and had an unforgettable day.



If I ever were to do this again, I'd probably do it from the start with a coach and a proper plan. I feel like I wasted a lot of time figuring basic stuff out and trying things that turned out to be dumb, too hard or unnecessary.



Next up is the Amsterdam Marathon in October to see what the run legs actually have (and when there aren't so many supporters to slow me down :) ).

Happy to answer anything about my training and my race.

First full distance, off ~7h/week and no coach — 11:38 at Challenge Almere Amsterdam