Week 32 of 2026: finish

This week World Pride Amsterdam finished, and I finished a book, my time on the pirate island and last but not least, I ran a PR in the second World Pride Run this Saturday. After that I took a shower at home, a walk along the final Pride March and went to the Tropikali party at Paradiso. The following day – and still today as I am writing this – I was completely finished.

Read

• finished The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (The Broken Earth 1)
• started The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin (The Broken Earth 2)

I finished The Fifth Season and I just immediately opened the next book in the series. I also made sure I already have the third book. This was a really good book, and a really good trilogy so far.

Played

On Tuesday there was another chapter of Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast. This time I played the Rabbits in the Garden Who Wear Little Outfits, with a big table including Gertrude, Yazeba, Hey Kid and Amelie, but also the unlocked characters Muckleby, the blob of grime and Edmund Wakeman, the haunted author. We played Chapter 1: A Birthday for Gertrude (I love how this game wants you to shuffle these around) and o no, Gertrude found out about our location, but luckily she accepted the party and most of our gifts.

On Wednesday I ran another week of Pirate Borg. It was very refreshing to play with people new to the game, but certainly not new to roleplaying. Since the group was half-new, I gathered them in The Green Kraken, and all I had to say was: you're pirates in a bar and they were exactly that for a while. So far we've been at Black Coral Bay, the island described in the back of the rulebook, but I feel like it's time to move the next session off the island. I'm taking next week off though, as I noticed it has been a bit much – even though it's fun, I need some rests as well.

Ran

On Monday, I ran home from the office with a small detour: 13km on easy pace. I planned it all out beforehand and only at the last moment I realized that it was 30ºC out there. I went anyway and it went well: I guess I got used to the heat after all these weeks.

On Tuesday, I ran to the office with a bit bigger of a detour: 24km on easy pace. At kilometer 15 it suddenly dawned on me that I have previously signed up for a 28k race, but since it got cancelled because of the heat, I have never actually ran further than 22km. So there we go: this was my longest run so far. It went really well, but I did notice I felt really empty the day after.

On Thursday I ran 10km easy around Gaasperplas, stopping at kilometer 4 because that's where the volleyball people were playing at the beach field. I only watched and continued my route after half an hour, but it was nice to see them.

On Saturday it was time for the second World Pride Run of this year: the one organized by Proud Strides. This was a 5km race, and as I arrived, they urged me to look up the route because I was in wave 1. I was a bit surprised by that, and after looking up the route I noticed that it was actually 5.1km, and thus not really validated. I went for it anyway.

We started super fast, and as I saw a group disappearing I slowed myself down: I was already going 3:30/km at that point and I know there is no way I can hold that for 5 kilometers. Once I settled into my planned 4:00/km I overtook a small group of the quickstarters and ended up in a pair with someone, so we ran most of the race together. In the last 30 meters he suddenly overtook me, and in the surprise I found another source of energy and finished in front of him. I had an official time of 20:11, which is already a PR on 5k (compared to previous 20:31), but Strava tells me this was a sub-20 5k, since the route was 100 meters too long. I came in 6th overall, very happy with the result.