Day 1: 52km - 14-28 degrees Celsius!

3.15 AM. Alarm clock starts beeping. After a little less than 5 hours sleep I'm preparing my food for along the way. It's pitch dark outside.
I unlock the bike I have on loan from Paul to arrive at the start of the first day's walk at 4.10 AM, being nearly kicked over by the mass of people that has just started the 52 km walk that is today's test excercise. I'm giving out to myself for being late... plus having lost my camera in the slightly stressy situation I put myself in - why on earth am I this nervous? No idea...

At 4.17 AM I walk under the Start banner and then it has really started. Cheered on by hundreds of drunk students who have just been kicked out of pubs and terraces and who wish all walkers well chanting things like: only "50 KM to go" - and other songs of the intoxinated kind... For a moment I thought - I well remember the time that I would have been on that other side, but oh gosh, here I am, being cheered on - and then at the same time I thought it was absolutely hilarious!

Sunrise at approximately 5.45 AM; beautiful painting in the sky over a still misty landscape.. lovely and fresh morning, but as soon as the sun gained height, it started to heat up.

Fellow walker Erik took a picture of me - so here I was taking my first break - very happy face for the time of the day, don't you think?

I may be walking in my hiking boots, but some people use other footwear... look at this guy, I bet he'll finish the complete 4 day Marches with no problem at all - he seemed to be totally at ease.

Another break, time to give the feet a bit of air and some feet gel... no blisters today, which is brilliant!

The number of ghetto blasters along the route was very high this year. We were walking/dancing in the streets where 'Blurred lines' or 'Get lucky' were pumped out of huge speakers - the spectators themselves dressed up so cool - it really was a case of observing and being observed and cheering each other on.

The ghetto blaster on the below picture was one very old one, but worked fine. The over 70 year old DJ was delighted with himself; playing marches to the rhythm of which all the walkers could put one feet in front of the other.

And guess what, a real hookers and pimps party along the route! They all looked fabulous!

Temperatures were rising and I saw one thermometer along the road showing 28 degrees at some stage. Scorching hot and hardly a breeze, so conditions were getting tough in the afternoon. Still, the music and water that was sprayed on all of us - and welcomed by most bar a few scroogy people - made the last 10 km so much easier. Have a look at the video below; the Dutch audience will recognise Guus Meeuwis' ''t Dondert en het bliksemt'... nice marching tempo ;)

Having left the carnavalesque atmosphere behind me, the walk got serious (and hot) again for the last part up to the finish. I lost the walking mate I had walked with since early morning because I wanted to walk that road as soon as possible... which resulted in me arriving at the finish line in bad need of some salty food!

I couldn't even take any beer, I just needed something salty to balance my body. Learned a very important lesson in that today; so tomorrow my food packet will include pasta (thanks again Ms Woud!) and crisps. Instead of a beer, this bag of chips was the best I could opt for - so good!

This day was extremely tiring because of the heat. And just picture this... hundreds of people dancing to the music played on the central square at which the walk finished... in their boots... a little like apres-ski, but then the summer edition.


I'm wrecked, so off to bed to prepare myself physically for day 2 - which will be a killer day!
Fingers crossed... and talk/chat soon!