Island beach running fun!

2 days ago

Hi all! Thank you for checking in on my blog about this amazing #running experience that I had today on a Dutch Island called Ameland.

Yesterday evening I arrived on the Island by boat (50 min) after a 3 hour drive.

Today we were set to explore the island and my girls took their kites to the beach. I noticed that I was already checking potential routes for today’s running adventure!

Last februari I ran the Bearsports Coast Marathon “De Hollandse Duinen” and I will be proudly representing #hiverun in their second edition in februari 2026 again! More info on this run: Link . Running on the beach especially with high tide is very different from running on the roads. I was very much looking forward to this week as it gave me a rare technical training opportunity for the event in februari!

My run today was simply beautiful! It was crazy this big beautiful beach was just empty. After the beach entrance there was just nobody…

It took me roughly 1 kilometer to reach the beach where I ran about 7 kilometer on the sand. My aim was to train for the marathon so regardless of the tide you run as close alongside the water as possible (as the ground is the most firm there) I had low tide - therefore I was able to run roughly the same pace as I would run on the road. While the view was simply amazing I also wanted to train a little more technical routes, therefore I decided to do the last part of my run in tne dunes!

Ameland is an island that is known for recreational biking (almost everyone rents a bike here) so there are loads of bikepaths on the island that you could pick as an easy road for your run:

While this road was comfortable I was looking for the loose sand challenges - but I found them 😝 I left the road to run up (and down) these dunes! Which was indeed something I still have to get better in (but was great fun!)