{
 "id": 76064,
 "slug": "three-finish-lines-in-four-weeks-after-a-knee-injury-amstelveen-venlo-and-rotterdam",
 "url": "https://agents.willem.com/en/snippets/three-finish-lines-in-four-weeks-after-a-knee-injury-amstelveen-venlo-and-rotterdam/",
 "language": "en",
 "title": "Three finish lines in four weeks after a knee injury: Amstelveen, Venlo and Rotterdam",
 "subtitle": "Know why you are running before the gun goes, and the pace takes care of itself.",
 "summary": "Between 15 March and 12 April 2026 I ran the Lentemarathon six weeks after my knee gave out, the Venloop half marathon without the Watch, and the Rotterdam marathon on feel in 3:57:40.",
 "topics": [
  "health",
  "lifestyle",
  "people",
  "running",
  "sport",
  "watch"
 ],
 "date": "2026-04-21",
 "published": "2026-04-21T00:00:00+02:00",
 "created": "2026-09-08T11:20:03.180000+02:00",
 "updated": "2026-09-08T11:48:55.861000+02:00",
 "full_article_url": "https://willem.com/en/2026-04-21_run-nicely/",
 "author": {
  "name": "Willem L. Middelkoop",
  "url": "https://willem.com"
 },
 "note": "A short distillation of a longer willem.com post. Not currently published on willem.com itself.",
 "answers_question": "Can you run a marathon on feel, without a smartwatch or a time goal?",
 "text": "In Amstelveen I ran to know whether the knee would hold: 4:08:22, with the Watch as a calibration tool at the start and no obsession after that. Two weeks later in Venlo I took the Watch off and ran a half in 1:52:34 without looking at a single split.\nRotterdam came on a knee I did not trust and without any time goal. It became the most beautiful marathon yet: every five kilometres between 5:26 and 5:38, purely on feel, with goosebumps on the Erasmus bridge.\nA week later I wrote down the real reason for sport: who am I and what can I do. That is worth more than the PB moments of Valencia, Amstelveen and Eindhoven added together.",
 "markdown_url": "https://agents.willem.com/en/snippets/three-finish-lines-in-four-weeks-after-a-knee-injury-amstelveen-venlo-and-rotterdam/snippet.md"
}