 So, here's all the flags from all the nations who will be racing. I am Amsterdam. Back from uploading yesterday's blog. That was a little insane, that's okay. A little slow Wi-Fi in Amsterdam, but we got it done. It's just like in racing, right? And yes, so if you don't know me too well yet, if you're a new subscriber, just so you know, I don't like to waste time to upload a video on single day to YouTube, you got to be efficient and you got to use your time wisely. And I think us runners, we love time. At least I love time and like using our time well anyway. So, today was a little hard, just like accepting the fact that, hey, I just got to accept the slow Wi-Fi and use my time well, which means I just stood up in the coffee shop and stretched and stretched and stretched. So, I feel very loosey-goosey right now, feeling good, going to go out for my jog in a second and how can you be too? And yes, I was just listening to classical music, can you hear that? There it is, there it is. You know how I like to listen to classical just to stay calm? But how can you get too down when you get a picture sent to you from True Love? I don't know if you can see that there. There's the little guy, there's the little guy, that's right, he's growing in there. He looks like a demore, he looks like a demore. So, all is well everyone. I'm going to go out for my five mile jog, nice and easy, and then we're going to go get some pasta tonight, start to do the carbs, and what else was I going to say? There was something else, something else, that, that, that, that, oh yeah, the course preview, we'll see. We'll see how much sunlight is left when I get back and all that. So, I was going to go show you a little bit of the course. We shall see, I just love you. Stay positive, stay flexible, just like in a race. When you have the low points in a race, it's that mental toughness and adapting to the situation. If it's bad weather, if you miss a water bottle at an aid station, if, if you get tripped at the beginning of a race when there's 45,000 runners, there's all these little variables that can come into play and I have learned over time to just stay flexible. Okay, I'm going to stop there. I could talk to all of you guys, I just love it. All right, let's... I'm going to wear my, going to wear my crazy shorts today. All right, sure enough, we've got enough sunlight. It's actually a really nice fall day here in Amsterdam. So, going out on a bike, rented a bike from where I'm staying here and let's just see, just got to figure out how to unlock this. And then we're going to go to the Olympic Stadium first and didn't plan this at all, but look what I'm wearing today. Oh yeah, there it is, by a bang, by a boom. So, all right, where are we at? We're rolling now. We're rolling now. All right. It's a nice bike. Oh my, look at this. Oh, it's beautiful. I'm just trying to blend in with the locals here. Just do as the locals do as I vlog on my bike. Oh, and look what I found. There it is, to all the runners. Well done. Oh, the Olympic Stadium. Oh my goodness. So, here's all the flags from all the nations who will be racing. I am Amsterdam. Not bad, everyone. Okay, wow. It looks like I can look right in the Olympic Stadium here. All right, let's go check it out. When you're watching this, that'll say two. We're almost there, folks. Not sure if you can see that up there, but yes. Mizuno is the presenting sponsor of the TCS Amsterdam Marathon. So that's kind of neat. I like that. I actually have a buddy who works for Mizuno back in the States. Shout out to Pipe of Life. Anyway, just soaking it in and it's good. The reason I came down here a couple is to preview the course, see how we exit and enter the stadium during the actual race just to see the layout. And it's about what I expected, but also just to make sure on the morning of the marathon, I know how far it is from my hotel. I don't think I'll be, I think I will end up taking some transportation. I wasn't sure how far it was exactly. Now I know. All right, this is it. I think we'll go right out here according to the map. Pretty beautiful place to run a marathon if you ask me. All right, I actually just pulled over here alongside getting out of the way so I don't get run over by the bikes. Pulling up the app. Gonna make sure I'm on the right track. Let's see here. Okay, brilliant. We're right about where my thumb is. So we're gonna keep biking and this green is Bondo Park. And then we're gonna go into the park. Oh my goodness. So it looks like we stay on the right side of the park. I'm actually switching to the other side of the street because I think that's where we're gonna be actually running right over here on the right side. Everyone thinks I'm crazy. Talking to a camera on a bike. I know, I know. All right, this is just brilliant everybody. So right here we're gonna turn right into the park. Here's Bondo Park. This is just brilliant. It helps so much mentally just to kind of know where I'm coming into the park and then we just roll through this park for about two, two and a half kilometers. Just stunningly beautiful. Here's Bondo Park right there and then we're gonna go right. Blocked off. Well, you go under this museum. So you literally run through there it looks like they haven't blocked off for the race but there's arches through this museum and that is where a lot of the Rembrandt paintings are at. Well, there you have it. That is the course preview for you via bike. I did about 5K of the course and it's exciting. I'm gonna talk Saturday about my race strategy which is impacted by the course of course and it's just amazing to be here to be alive, to be breathing sea level air. You can almost cut it with a butter knife down here. So, alright, so that's that. Let me just just make sure I don't get hit by a car. You know what I mean? What's up? Here we are. I just can't get over this view out this hotel. Alright, I'm feeling much better. Got the run in. Got the course preview via bike for all of you. With all of you, I must say I was a little stressed about that internet situation but I just didn't expect that and you just asked true love like she knows I like to be expeditious in my time. Isn't this cute? Look at this. Taking a little photo shoot in the middle of the street. Gram it. Put it on the gram anyway. I love you all and thanks for walking me off. Thanks for walking me back from that cliff. Thanks for walking me back from that cliff. We got this. We got this everybody. You better believe we've got this. Alright everyone, just getting back from dinner and let me just set this down here. Topping off my nightly. How was that annual? Nightly tea. Oh, there it is. Butter that bread. And dinner was delicious. Got some shots there of the salad and the salmon and the pasta. Oh, just superb Italian putting the carbs in. Getting ready to rock and roll and one sec, let me just pull up a few things here. So let's see. Tip of the day, real quick and actually let's just do it. Question of the day as well. First let me give the tip is I just got done turning off all the notifications on my phone for all of the social media apps. I love you all. Love you all. Love communicating. But there is a time when I shut off and just hone in and focus on the tasks at hand so you will not be hearing from me on Snapchat or Twitter or Instagram or nowhere. Not even on YouTube. That's right. I'm shutting down so all the apps are now all the notifications on my phone are turned off. That's my little tip. That's how I focus in on a big peak race. That's since the Pikes Peak Ascent, which was my last peak race. Question of the day, how do you block distractions before a peak race? Do you have a strategy? Yeah, what do you do? I won't read your comments. I'll read your comments after the race. But anyway, that's the question of the day. Thanks for answering it. And yes, let me just pull up the map here. So you've got the map down in the lower left corner is the Olympic Stadium where we were earlier. And then here is Vondel Park just above. And basically, this is the map. It might look a little confusing to you. And there are, you know, there are some turns in this course. It's not a completely straight course by any means. But I am pretty excited because the streets here in Amsterdam are pretty narrow compared to states, streets in the US. And I even think, you know, compared to streets in London or Berlin, which means I think the crowd, hopefully the crowd is big, but I think the crowd cheering and noise is going to be on point for encouraging all the runners to do the best that they can. I've just noticed that the streets in Amsterdam are not very wide. So that is a good thing. And so here's the course map. Here's a little bootleg down. I guess this would be considered south, I do believe. And I'm pretty excited about it actually. It's along a canal or a river. I'm not sure if it's a river or a canal. And you basically go out and back and it's basically the halfway point toward the bottom. There's 21K right there. So, and yes, you see the musical notes along the way. There is music out there. So it's going to be good, everyone. And I'm excited for this course. All right. And there you have it. So at least I know that was not the entire course today on the bike. Obviously it can't do that three days before, but hopefully you have a little sense of the streets and the park and just what I'll be seeing out there on the ground on Sunday morning. And okay, last but not least, I already asked a question of the day, but today's vlog, it did publish late. However, oh my goodness, I texted you love and said, how are the comments doing? Because remember, I'm not reading the comments. I'm just letting you guys go for it. And she said, oh my goodness, just broke 500 and that was 500 comments. And that was I think an hour and a half, maybe two hours after I hit publish. So if you haven't recorded your guess for my marathon finishing time, go up a right hand corner to, oh, and speaking of true love, there she is calling right now. So I got to sign off. Love you all. We'll toss it back to a couple old random blogs on the right and the left. I love you, love you, love you. See beauty, work hard and love each other. Hi true love. I'm just wrapping up the vlog.