4 Days Marches Nijmegen
Three weeks to the day when I completed the 4 Days Marches Nijmegen.
It took that long – and countless drafts of this story – for me to process all that happened and ‘come to peace’ with it in order to write a positive piece about it. That is because the entire experience was good and rewarding except for the last few hours. But those last hours were not pleasant, and, unfortunately, were the ones that stayed with me for longer.
I guess the 4 Days Marches Nijmegen is one of those instances when you learn from the extraordinary experiences you go through. Strangely enough, it was not the physical effort that got me to discover stuff about myself but my reactions to events that I should have expected. I usually adapt fast when things don’t go as planned, and my attitude is like the morale patch on my backpack “Shit happens.” Things were different this time.
But let’s start with the beginning.
I chose to fly to the Netherlands on Monday, so I spent Sunday monitoring the WhatsApp group for photos and info about the camp where we were staying and the Marches app for news.
On Monday, on the plane, I didn’t have my headset on, so I could hear people speaking about the Marches. Things were getting real. ‘I am really doing this’ were both my state of mind and words for the following days.
Two trains later, I am in Nijmegen, trying to fit my backpacks and me on a single bus seat. The special shuttle that takes us to the Kamp Heumensoord is quite full, and I don’t want to take more space than I can squeeze myself in. Minutes later, a guy got into the bus, and I happily shared the half seat next to me. We break a conversation about the Marches, that this is my first time and how excited I am about it, and while I keep apologizing for the millionth time for taking so much space, he tells me that I am traveling light. I stare at him, unsure if he is joking or not cause I feel like the two backpacks I have fill up half the bus. I am known for living out of a daypack for 14 days, three countries and two continents, so all this for just five days is way too much.
I finally reached Kamp Heumensoord and the tent that was going to be my home for the next few days; I met the rest of the team, some I knew from photos from social media; I stressed everyone out with my excitement and worry that I won’t be able to keep up. And then I get to the serious matters: food and coffee. From the pictures the guys posted, the food didn’t look that good, but that was just a fluke. For the four days that we were there, the food was fabulous. Huge portions and diverse, with carbs and protein and all that a body put through 40km a day will need to refuel, plus it was also delicious. And I found hot water for my coffee. I got all my gear ready for the next day and tried to calm down. Not that I could, but I least I tried.
We were told that the next day the wake-up call was about 0330 and that we would start the march at about 5ish. The same will be for the following days, but the start of the marching time was never respected. Not the organizers’ fault; they did manage a great job hosting about 7000 people in the Kamp Heumensoord, with excellent conditions. But getting roughly 4,000 militaries to get in formations and start marching in time is a little more complicated.
My next challenge was to sleep. I can sleep anywhere and pretty much in any condition. If I am tired. If not… that’s a different story. I can stare at the ceiling – or tent, in our case – for hours. I wasn’t tired. So after chatting a little more with the team colleague from the bed next to mine, I spent another hour or so convincing myself to sleep. I managed to do so at about midnight, just to wake up on my own three and half hours later, just in time for the wake-up call that the camp so kindly broadcast through the loudspeakers.
If you had asked me at the end of the first day how it was, I could have told you in detail. But not if you asked me two days later. By then, all blurred into one: breaks, people you spoke with, other teams you met on the way, villages, songs played in city centers or peoples’ front yards. You do remember things here and there, like the old man that walked for a while next to you and asked all kinds of questions about you, the team, and your country, just to take his mind of the effort of the walk; the toddlers up at 5 in the morning waving to the military teams passing buy; the smile of the kinds when you went out of your formations just to get to them and ‘high five’ them. The fog of the mashes when the military route separated from the civilian one, and all you heard was the birds and the marching songs. The endless search for hills on the third day – there were some inclines, and a couple did look like the start of a hill, but by the time you got into the rhythm, you were at the top and had to descend, and going downhill hurts more than going uphill. The pontoon bridge I almost fell down because I was filming instead of looking where I was going. The kind locals that fed you, gave you water and sweets, let you in their houses to use the toilets. Yes, I’ve done that too; after all the bushes, a decent bathroom was an excellent change.
There isn’t much that I can tell about what happened every day, most of the time was spent marching. The most eventful day was the last one. And is the one that took me about three weeks to analyze and see if there was anything I could have done differently, if there is something for me to learn and grow from.
It said that events like the 4Days Marches that push you to the limits are the ones that also teach you a lot about yourself. The same was for me. But, although before the event, I was worried about my physical capacity, what I learned was more about my reactions and how I’ve changed from the person I knew I was and who I liked being.
One of the things I’ve learned in the first three days was not to try new things on race dyas – I knew that, I just needed a reminder that, in my case, came in the form of my little toes covered in big blisters. Use the infirmary if you have it there, even for prevention. I still need to work on my boots–socks combination to accommodate two pairs of socks – one pair is ok for one or two days events, but longer ones need a different approach.
The fourth day was the one that was supposed to be awesome, but it turned out to be full of pain, nerves, and humiliation. I will not give too many details about what happened, it will not change the fact and I don’t think that more information about the events will improve things. All I will say is that decisions were made that got me in a lot more pain than I anticipated and robbed us (or at least me) of that glorious parade on Via Gladiola that I had my mind set on.
First thing – the physical pain. I dislocated a toe. It happens pretty quickly for me because I have a history of my toes popping out of their joint socket. The more this happens, the easier they pop out and the easier it is to put them back in. It still hurts. And just because I know the pain and got used to it, doesn’t make it less painful. I’ve just learned how to work my mind around the pain and keep walking. Was my dislocated toe a direct consequence of that decision? Yes. I know the conditions which cause my toes to pop out, and that situation was perfect for this.
I was to blame for the conjunctivitis that I got– I still haven’t learned my lesson not to touch my eyes, especially when I cannot keep my hands clean. If would have been only that, knowing that it was my fault, it would have been fine.
But having to go through unnecessary pain caused by someone’s decision it’s what got me nervous and in a bad mood. And I have to work on improving myself. I cannot change what people do, but I can work on how I react. But in those moments, that robbed me of the joy of finishing the Marches and the glory of the Via Gladiola Parade. And Via Gladiola, at least for me, felt like a humiliation. The fourth day of the march finished at the military support area “Charlemagne,” where the military contingents were given their medals. From there, there were another 6km or so of Vila Gladiola, a parade with public cheering, music, and celebrations.
By the end of the marches, I wasn’t the only one walking slowly, so we ended up being, if not the last, at least one of the last teams walking the Via Gladiola. And because it was decided to have the medals presented tu us in a ceremony back at the Kamp Heumensoord after the Via Gladiola, we walked without the medals, while the other teams had their medals on their chest. I don’t know how others felt, but I didn’t feel like a victorious finisher of the Marches but like going home defeated.
It took me about two weeks to shake that feeling of defeat and get my mind to accept that I had finished the Marches and earned that medal.
Looking back now, I think that conjunctivitis was a blessing in disguise. In the pain and state of mind that I was in at that moment, I don’t think I would have reacted very nicely to the events that unfolded once we were back in the camp. As you can imagine, I was not the only one on the team affected by that decision, and from what I was told, things were not all pleasant once we reached the camp. I was not there; I was in the infirmary, pampered by two gorgeous male medical staff – a doctor and a nurse – and waiting to be sent to the hospital for further investigation with my eyes.
The rest of the team had the medal award ceremony in a type of event that I would not have resonated with. My medal award ceremony was definitely more of my style. In an unusual place, the camp’s medical tent, with laughter and banter, with the team leader pinning the medal on my chest and the doctor cleaning my eye so I look good in the pictures.
And there is another thing that I was told I need to work on: how I tell things. I will act like the end of the world if I get a paper cut, but I smile and joke if I break half of the ligaments on my knee – done that while skying years back. So it’s hard for people to believe I am seriously hurt if I laugh about it.
It’s what I did when I got to the infirmary with my eye. My conjunctivitis started about 6 hours earlier, and by the time we reached Kamp Heumensoord, my eye was completely closed, and the l right side of my face was quite swollen. So I went straight to the medical tent, walked in, and with a cheerful voice and a huge smile, I told the staff I thought I needed help. The reply I got was that I definitely needed help, and all the staff started preparing for my consultation with a serious and concerned expression. Their foremost concern was that it could be cellulitis, which is severe and can be life-threatening.
I will try to conclude this story on a positive note, as the experience was a positive one, and I don’t want to let those last hours darken the feeling more than they did already.
First, I have fucking done the 4 Days Marches Nijmegen!
Second, I need to rely only on the things I’ve tried and know that work, and don’t try new things on race days.
Third, I will probably never wear other boots that Haix – they saved my foot.
Forth, I have my first lost toenail – the toe looks as bald as I am right now.
Fifth, shit happens!
Sixth, I marked my 44th year of life with 4 days of 40km a day.
Seventh, I have fucking done the 4 Days Marches Nijmegen!
Eight, shit happens!
Ninth, tenth, and so forth, shit happens!
