“Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect”
Fisherman’s Friend…right, the packs of bad tasting brown-looking mints I didn’t like as a kid. After 15 years, they still exist apparently. The taste still sucks but they are also organising running contests now. A lot of fuss was made about their new running concept: The Strongmanrun. Only for the thoughest ones on earth. I had to be there.
Antwerp, Saturday afternoon, for a change the rain was pouring down. 2 loops of 6,5k with a total of 12 obstacels. Fairly overpriced and unorganized. But the videos from the German and Suisse edition looked very promising. Wedding proposals 15min before the start. This is serious business.
Started off with 30 minutes delay together with Run To The Hills team member Marijn. We decided to give it a smooth and easy start, but never went under 12km/h. One of the registered obstacles was a semi-dark tunnel with music raging through the speakers by the local danceclub. Terrible. Remarkable how some take the ‘strong’ a bit too serious without thinking of the running part. Walking closets with 20cm biceps dying after 5k. They would break my legs with two fingers though.
Is it just me, or was this course rather easy ? To my surprise we finished it in less than an hour, all the waiting at the obstacles included. 13k? I must have missed something in my calculations. But, we had good fun. And that is the most important part. Hand in hand over the finish, this is running brotherhood. Special gifts for the first 500 finishers, we finished 166th out of 1300 participants.
3 weeks left now to train for the In Flanders Fields marathon. I was born too late.
Too easy. I was totally out of shape and finishing 166th on 1000+ contestants? But their facebook page tells me they are hearing what the participants are saying, lessons are being taken it seems. Promising for next year’s edition. Although this wasn’t worth the price, next year might just very well be…
Still, good times! brothers in arms!