Marathon Adventure to Amsterdam

The Marathon Man International mission started out from Sydney Airport on Wednesday afternoon 15th October with a number of connecting flights to navigate so as to arrive safely into Amsterdam for the first of three international marathons over the next three weeks.

Following a smooth first flight to Singapore and the opportunity to shower and rest up a little at Changi Airport this is where the action and drama started. With the flight to London Heathrow initially delayed due to the late arrival of a connecting flight, there were then issues with people not boarding the flight and baggage having to be removed. There was one person in particular who was responsible for the major delay of the flight by more than a hour and a half with this person showing up just as the bags were being removed. The more frustrating thing is that this same person was then seated behind me and I had also seen them wondering around inside the airport more than a hour before the flight was due to leave!

I was now a little concerned that I may not make it into London for my connecting fligth to Amsterdam as I initially only had just over a hour window to make it from Terminal 4 to Terminal 5 at Heathrow for a 7.45am departure. Sure enough on arrival I raced out of the plane and missed the cutoff at Customs by only a matter of minutes. On returning to make the next flight with the gate closing at 8.20am the BAA Security team decided to make my life hell by stopping to check my carry on luggage and scanning the bag four times and going through every item in the bag. Having been assured that I would not miss another flight by three people and with the only item discovered being a pen exactly the same as one carried through in my jeans I found this a little frustrating and of course ended up missing another flight. All up I spent more than 4 hours in Heathrow Airport and as you can imagine was more than a little tired and emotional. Having received 10 pounds compensation to purchase Pret a Manger for early lunch I was finally bound for Amstedam for the adventure to continue in Europe ... Travel time to Amsterdam - 34 hours!