Anton Engelmann (71) from Eindhoven is walking his fiftieth Nijmegen Vierdaagse (Nijmegen four day march) this year. “I just find it nice and relaxing to clear ‘my head’”. At his age, thirty kilometres a day is considered enough, but he still wants to make it fifty kilometres a day. But: it will be the last time he participates.
He will soon have walked a total of 10,000 kilometres in the Nijmegen Vierdaagse. That’s approximately from here to Thailand. “Fifty times is of course a milestone. This time I dedicate my walk to a good friend from the past. He was my sponsor and masseur. He is deceased. I already decided then that I would walk the fiftieth for him”.
Anton enjoys walking. He once started at a walking club in Eindhoven. “But then you only walk fifteen kilometres. That’s too little for me.
When I was eighteen, I started walking with someone I knew from the walking club in Nijmegen”.
Prenuptial agreement
At home, Anton has a board with all the medals he has received after each Nijmegen Vierdaagse. He will have been married for 49 years in September. It was a ‘marital condition’ that Anton could continue to participate in this Vierdaagse. “The carnival and the Vierdaagse. My wife had to stay away from that. I said early on that the fiftieth time was a must. With a smile of course, but she went along with it”.
Anyone who walks with him for a while does not expect to deal with someone in their seventies. The pace is high. He still covers fifty kilometres a day for four days in a row. “That must be in your system. I always walk very easily and happily”.
But if you talk to him for a while, you discover that is he is handling aches and pains because he has been in constant pain for the last ten years. “An operation did not go well and I am left with a pinched nerve in my back”.
Trouble with his body
This is the last time he will walk the Vierdaagse. “My body has suffered so much in recent years that I no longer feel comfortable preparing for it for months”.
Because good preparation is the best tip he can give. And above all, get a lot of kilometres under your belt. He already walked four hundred kilometres in preparation. “There are always people who drop out. They drop out because they wear the wrong footwear or socks but it is mainly due to lack of training”.
Explaining what makes the Vierdaagse so beautiful is not difficult for Anton. “You meet a lot of people. There I met English and German people with whom I still keep in touch. If you walk for an hour, you will find people who walk your pace. A chat here, a chat there. The atmosphere in Nijmegen is indescribable, it’s so wonderful”.
On the board with awards, there is room for the very last one in addition to the ’49’. After this year it’s really over. “It won’t be very easy. It will work, but then I’ll be done. Then I have achieved my goals. Then I’m satisfied”.
“I’m going to fall into a big black hole, but physically speaking I should have stopped two or three years ago. I will keep walking for stretches, but when I say a stretch I mean an hour to an hour and a half’s walk. Those are stretches for me”.
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
