The marathon

Since lockdowns were introduced to our daily lives and people have began to realize the importance of exercise just by not being able to go to the gym, I’ve realized that not having a gym membership is a blessing. For a while now whilst studying and working from home, I’ve been looking outside to see people walking, jogging and cycling at whatever hour. And, well, with some extra motivation from the pants that don’t fit me anymore, I’ve decided I want to be outside more too.

This is not a motivational speech in any way, I’m not about to change my career to be a lifestyle vlogger or blogger since my motivation still lies with a nice cold glass of beer, but more about the reward system later. This is also not the story of how I got a lot of money from sponsor contracts to pay off my student loan, and last time I checked I wasn’t a 40-year-old car mechanic with a lot of debt and a plot to keep my garage. Although paying off part of my student loan by running for my life would be a great additional motivator to really train for this 21.1 km challenge in 10 months. Yet, I’m not the only one that took this opportunity to lose some weight, gain some stamina and hope that at least one person doesn’t make it in order to get a bunch of free beer.

We’ve started a team, with one task and one and the same challenge. MarathonNovum will be running the half marathon of Eindhoven in October of 2022. Our rules are simple, whether you’re an active member, a passive one, a former member, or somebody that is just very gezellig and needs some motivation, you can sign up for MarathonNovum by entering our WhatsApp group. Once you enter, you agree to the terms which are simple, but I’ll list them here just in case:

1. Drop out of the challenge = pay for a keg of beer 2. Not finishing the 21.1 km = pay for a keg of beer 3. Not being able to finish the 21.1km within 3 hours = pay for a keg of beer

You get the picture. For each member of our team, the rules are the same (unless you injure yourself trying, then we will maybe be nice to you and not make you pay for a keg). To show you how motivated we are, we even bring you some quotes from team members. Stijn Stertefeld: “My motivation in joining MarathonNovum is frankly just because I trust at least one person will not be able to finish and I’d never say no to free beer.” Another inspirational quote comes from our Prince Charming: “You run your life!”. Unfortunately, he’s not in our team, but we do have the master of backbone, Siem Hendriks : “The number of opinions in a squared meter was too large and my spinal cord was nowhere to be found either so here we are.” So, if after reading this fill-up article of this edition of the InSide you think, well I’m up for the challenge, think again. I’ll give you a few seconds… You’re still thinking about it, well sure, if you think you can do it, sign up and join our team! If you’re a (former) board member and you think, that board belly has been here for quite some time now, might be an idea to see if I can get rid of it, sign up and join our team!

Need I say more to convince you to join? Ohh, was this not a campaign to gather more idiots who think they can do it and increase our chances of someone failing. Oops. Here’s a fun motivational quote to finish with, and you’ll see our follow-up article on the progress of our members in the next edition or something, take care!

Kisses, Emma van Dongen (also here for the beer and getting rid of that board belly)

P.S. I was tricked!