Picture in your mind a two-lane country road stretching as far as you can see in either direction. Now picture that same road totally filled with people, all walking purposefully in the same direction—so many people that at almost any moment anyone can reach out and touch someone else. If you can imagine that, you can imagine a scene from the International Four Days’ March of Nijmegen!
Nijmegen, located in the southeast part of the country near the German border , is the oldest city in Holland and has about 150,000 residents. With 45,000 participants arriving to take part in the walk, the place is completely transformed for the four days, and everything else takes a back seat to “De Vierdaagse,” as the walk is known throughout Holland.
Started in 1909, the event has become the world’s largest organized group walk. Growing from a just a few hundred participants in the early years, the 2003 walk included 45,000 who began the walk and over 40,700 who finished. The participants were divided almost equally between men and women, and ages ranged from very young to very old. One 84-year-old woman was doing the walk for the 67th time! I had a brief conversation along the route with a young Dutch boy aged 11 who was doing it for the first time.
The route of the walk is interesting: on the first day walkers head North and do a loop through the countryside before returning to the starting point. On the second day the loop is to the West, then South, and finally East. Distances walked and starting times depend on the walker’s age and gender: the vast majority are required to walk either 50 or 40 kilometers each day, though those of us over 65 only had to walk 30K. The walks began at 4 AM, 5:30 AM, and 7:30 AM, for each distance, though several hundred “seniors” (those aged 75 and above!) were allowed to start at 7. All walkers had to finish by 5 PM. 7000 military participants from many NATO countries walked 40K with their units in full field uniforms and carried 10-kilogram packs! Controls are strict: each walker had to carry a card which was punched at the start and at random checkpoints along the way.
Naturally, footwear is an item of interest and concern for an event of this type. About half the walkers followed the organizers’ suggestion and wore hiking or low-cut walking shoes. I wore running shoes and other apparel suggested by Lea and Suzanne at Metro Run and Walk, and was perfectly comfortable. Military walkers wore combat boots. I also saw many folks wearing Teva-type sandals, a number in the traditional Dutch wooden shoes, and even one woman in high-heeled platform shoes!
It’s impossible to describe adequately the impressions one gets in an event of this type. Some of the many memories I have include: thousands of walkers waiting patiently to begin the day’s walk…bands or DJ’s with sound systems playing in almost every town we walked though…little children holding out bowls of candy…an older fellow wearing a medal and ribbon indicating that he was doing his 52nd walk, telling me he was 77, and then walking away at a pace I couldn’t maintain…Dutch men and women riding bikes 10 miles from campgrounds outside of town, walking 50K, and riding back to their campsites…the incredible friendliness of everyone… having a post-walk beer after each day’s walk, and sharing stories with other walkers…the fantastic organization required to conduct an event like this…on the last 6K on the 4th day’s walk marching down a wide street (named for that day the “Via Gladiola), thronged with dozens of bands and tens of thousands of spectators cheering and handing flowers to the walkers…the thrill of receiving a medal at the end of the walk!
Finding lodging for such a huge group is a problem. However, we had applied to the Dutch Tourist Bureau in the Spring and, for a modest fee we were, on arrival, placed in the home of a very congenial gentleman who made our stay even more pleasant by providing us lodging and meals, and on the fourth day met each of us near the finish with the traditional victor’s bouquet of flowers!
Will I do it again? I went to Holland with a longtime friend and former co-worker, Jim Hess. After the finish on the fourth day, we were enjoying a moment of relaxation at a café and a man rode up on his bike. He saw our medals, congratulated us, showed us his medal indicating that he had done it 16 times before, and warned, “Don’t come back a second time unless you want to get hooked!” I’m afraid his warning came too late: I’m already hooked!