Yesterday's newspaper ...

... contained an article about my sister and the latest
edition of the Four Day Marches in Nijmegen !

A picture says more than a thousand words

Afterparty on the Fabersquare

Yesterday, after walking the final day of the Nijmegen Four
Day Marches, we had a bit of an afterparty on the Faberplein
(Fabersquare) where they build a giant beertent every year for
the Summerfestival which is alway held in the same week as
the Marches. When we were there a Dutch sing-along band
was playing, so we had lots of fun !

Friday : Day of Cuijk

We made it ! It took us eleven and a half hours, but
that is not important once you cross the Finish Line :)

Thursday : Day of Groesbeek, the Seven Hills

Today was another fabulous day for walking, but it was
very hot, up in the thirties Celcius. That, combined with
the fact that it is hard for my sister to walk as fast as she
normally does and that it is harder than normal for her
to climb hills, made today quite hard. But we made it
again and are anxious to start the fourth and final day
of the marches.

Wednesday : Day of Wijchen, Pink Wednesday

It was another warm and humid day for us walkers and
it was quite heavy on my sister. She got interviewed twice
for the radio again, and once for the tv. The route was
lovely and on top of things it was Pink Wednesday,
a day to focus on tolerance for all, which is charachterized
by the rainbowflag on Nijmegen Kathedral. We hope that
the humidity will go down a bit tomorrow, though,
and if it does it will be a perfect day again :)

Four Day Marches

Tomorrow the 97th edition of the Nijmegen Four Day Marches
is beginning and we will be participating, again ! The
weather is looking great and we are crossing our fingers
that the weather people have got it right this time :)
The alarm will be ringing at a quarter to four tomorrow
morning, so tonight we will turn in early.

My sister is famous !

Next week there will be another edition of the
Nijmegen Four Day Marches and we will be
joining again. This year is quite special because
of my sister who will also be walking but is six
and a half months pregnant at the moment !
During the marches she will be followed by
tv and radio people from Omroep Gelderland
and things will be posted on their website
as well :D The first part that has been posted
on the website :

Four Day Marches photo and card

This photograph was taken on the last day of the
marches after we were done walking.

Four Day Marches : day one photograph

My parents during the first day
of this year's edition of the
Nijmegen Four Day Marches.
What a nice photograph !

Day of Cuijk : Nijmegen Four Day marches, day four

Today was a wonderful day for us walkers. The weather was
fantastic with 23 degrees celcius, no wind and sun. It was great
to have such a nice day after yesterday. Everyone did okay,
apart from (quite a few !) blisters. We are now the proud
owners of medalnumber 7 !

Today we were walking in our blooddonor shirt for this year
which says : real heroes donate blood. The bloodbank asks
all their donors each year to wear this shirt during the marches
to promote their work and to recieve more donors.

Also, my sister and i have been on national tv (at least) twice
this year ! Our first appearance was on tuesday in the
tv programme "Het gevoel van de Vierdaagse" (The feeling
of the Four Day Marches). We are wearing the turqoise shirts.



Our second appearance was on wednesday and we are visible
to the left of masseuse in the pink shirts.


To give you an impression of how Nijmegen is affected by the
Four Day Marches i want to show you a split photograph of the
Via Gladiola during the marches and on a normal day :

Day of Groesbeek : Nijmegen Four Day Marches, day three

Today was a difficult day for us walkers, we were
treated to two cloudbursts (one of them just did
not want to stop) and that made the circumstances
for walking quite hard. On the positive side : we got
to stop for a break in Groesbeek, with Rini and
Maarten, who spoiled us rotten with butter cake
(a dutch speciality), meatballs, cheese, coffee and
lots of other drinks that we reallly appreciated.
Thank you so much, again !

Today we were wearing our blooddonor shirt from
last year, with the following riddle on it :
"it is red and it saves lives".

Day of Wijchen : Nijmegen Four Day Marches, day two

With 23 degrees celcius, sun, some clouds and a bit of wind it
was a fantastic day for walking ! It was also the tenth edition
of Pink Wednesday, the day of the Four Day Marches where
diversity is celebrated in the Gay Quarter of Nijmegen.

To give you an impression of a typical day during the
Four Day Marches, here is an oversight :
03:50 - the alarm goes, it is time to get up !
04:40 - we leave the house to drive to Nijmegen.
05:30 - we arrive in Nijmegen and walk in about
15 minutes to the starting / finishing area.
Depending on how late we are allowed to start walking,
we start between 06:00 and 06:30.
We arrive back at the starting / finishing area between
14:30 and 15:30.

We drive back home which takes about an hour.
Back at home we shower, get out backpacks ready
for the next day and eat dinner.
At 19:25 there is a program on tv called "Het gevoel van"
(The feeling of) which is finished at 19:50 and which means
that it is time for bed !

Day of Elst : Nijmegen Four Day Marches, day one

Variation is the keyword for today. We got rain, wind, clouds, sunshine,
blue skies, warmth and cold. So noone can say that today's walk was
a boring one. We had a lot of fun with some of the other walkers and
people that were sitting by the side of the road.

We all finished and did so without major problems. There are some
blisters to be taken care of, but that is the biggest of our problems, so
we can not complain. Of course we are all tired and will be turning in
at around 20:00 tonight for a well-deserved rest. And tomorrow we
will be joining the other walkers for a day of walking, and hopefully
lots of fun again :)

Another year, another four marches

Tomorrow starts the first of four days of tiredness, pain and especially,
fun ! We are again taking part in the largest walking event of the world,
the Nijmegen Four Day Marches. Every year, the trainings begin in
febuary and end about two weeks before the Four Day Marches begin.
It means that we have spent about 100 hours of active training in that
period. That does not include the breaks we took during the walks
and the hours we spent buying equipment or other necessities. But,
it really is worth the time and the blisters and the other inconveniences
of the past months. We are looking forward to beginning tomorrow.
The alarm goes off at 04:00 o'clock and we wil start walking about
two hours later (it takes us about five quarters of an hour to get to the
starting point).

My sister bought a book earlier today when we were in Nijmegen
to recieve our wristbands. (We get scanned at the start, at the finish
and at some two or three chekcpoints per day). The book is really nice
with lots of nice photographs and interesting facts. I can recommend
it to all marchers and anyone else that is interested in the history of
the Four Day Marches.

Four Day Marches : day of Cuijk 2011

With a length of more than 42 kilometres, the last march
is the longest of the four. Another thing that is quite special
is that we cross the river Meuse on a pontoon bridge which
is only there for a few hours on the last day of the marches.
If you do not pass over the bridge before a set time, you
will not be able to make the walk to Nijmegen in time.



We started in cold weather and the cold was soon joined
by rain. After our first break we were able to take off
our raingear and have not needed it any further. The
rest of the day was nice and warm and for the most sunny.


The flag of Cuijk.

Four Day Marches : day of Groesbeek 2011

Today i want to start by thanking everyone that is
commenting on the Four Day Marches posts, those
comments are very very much appreciated, not only
by me, but by my family too :D



Today was the third of the four marches, a real
beauty of a walk and loved above the other marches
by most of the participants. We had lovely weather
until about half an hour before we came over the
finish line. It started to rain and when we finally
crossed the finish line we were treated to a cloud
burst.



Besides some (quite large) blisters we are doing
fine and are preparing for the last of the marches.

Four Day Marches : day of Wijchen 2011

The second day of the marches is traditionally known as
the Day of Wijchen because the marches pass through the
town twice that day. It is a beautiful walk that passes also
through many other towns and villages and there are
many people standing at the sides of the road almost
everywhere, which is great.
Today was another fine day to walk on, a temperature up
in the twenties which was lovely. It was cloudy but now
and then we had some sun. The humidity was quite high
which resulted in quite heavy rain later on, but that only
fell after we finished, luckily !
We are now preparing for the third day of walking,
tomorrow. I can not believe we are half way already.
Eighty kilometres done, eighty more to go.


The flag of Wijchen.

Four Day Marches : day of Elst 2011

The weatherforecasts were quite bad, but today
was a good day to walk. We expected to walk in
the cold and rain but today the temperature was
up in the twenties and although it was quite
humid we were not complaining, of course.



We were treated to a fantastic sunrise when we crossed
the bridge, what a way to start the day !

We all finished the walk without big problems and
are looking forward to tomorrow. Let us hope that
the weather will hold :)

Four Day Marches : bridge celebration

During the Four Days Marches the Waalbrug is playing
a big part. We cross it on several occasions during the
Marches. This year the bridge is 75 years old and has
experienced quite a lot in its lifetime.



The Waalbrug is an arch bridge over the Waal River
in Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands. The full length
of the Waalbrug is 604 metres (1,982 ft), and in the
middle of the arch it is about 65 metres (213 ft) high.
The largest arch is 244.1 metres (801 ft) long and at
the time of construction was the longest arch in Europe.



The bridge was opened on 16 June 1936 by Queen
Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in front of
200.000 people.



At the start of the Second World War the
Dutch combat engineering units blew up the bridge
to stop the German army's advance. During the
occupation the Germans restored the bridge and
from 1943 it was in use for traffic again. In 1944 the
Germans planned to blow up the bridge again but a
Rover Scout and member of the Dutch Resistance,
managed to prevent this. On 20 September 1944,
the bridge was conquered by allied forces.



The bridge was coloured green until 1980, these days it is white.

The Waalbrug can be found in the movie A Bridge Too Far and
the computer game Medal of Honor: Frontline.