2024 A new start

If you would ask me to describe 2024 in one sentence, my answer would be: impossible. 2024 was a mix of emotions, sadness and happiness, love and hate, black and white,... A year where all pieces of the puzzle came together (or at least most of the pieces) Let's say that 2024 was the transition year to a new beginning. Somewhere along the journey you need to leave the past behind and start fresh. Well, that's easier said than done. The past has defined many things in my life and alldough I want to erase many parts of the past, it has left many scars. You cannot get rid of scars that easily, you can try to hide them. And I guess that's what I've been doing the past years. Most scars trigger negative feelings or emotions, but scars can also mean life lessons. One of the hardest lessons was loneliness.

I've learned something very valuable. I've learned that being stuck in a negative spiral is not gonna do me any good. So I had to take some drastic measures to get myself back out there.

That said...Let's talk numbers

In a “normal” year, you could read my whereabouts through my social posts. But the urge to post pictures on social media had dropped to a low point. Does that mean that I gave up on running? Absolutely not. Many post their statistics at the end of the year and while I'm not a big fan of these statistics because they don't define the amount of pleasure, I was curious about this year's totals. My Garmin stats are not an exact representation because many times I just forget to turn on my watch. In 2024 I ran about 1.800 km which is 2,5 times more than 2023. Approximately 16.000 altimeters were a little over what I did last year.

Now that we are talking about numbers, let's talk about Instagram numbers. In a previous blog I was very hard on the running community and that hasn't changed. That automatically resulted in loss of followers, but I don't really care about that. More important is the number of accounts that I had to block in my battle for a normal life. In 2024 I blocked over 600 accounts making the total amount of blocked accounts over 900 so far

While my number of Instagram posts were very low (24 posts in 2024), it was still higher than the 15 posts I made in 2023. I did post many more stories in 2024 - about 90 compared to 36 from 2023.

On the other side there are the number of people who I had the chance to run with. Only 2 people were willing to run with me in 2024 (that's two times in one year). In 2023 I was more fortunate with 5 people.

I guess that life always tries to keep a balance between positive and negative.

2023 and 2024 go in the books as the loneliest years in my life.

Enough about numbers.

Annual review (as chronological as possible)

On my birthday I did my first post for 2024. There I announced that I had a new four legged friend which I had kept a secret for almost a year. The first two months I struggled with many dark moments. The horror from past years had broken me in ways beyond my comprehension. I couldn't find a way to get out of the negative spiral. For the first time in my life I did not receive any birthday wishes, even though I mentioned it in my post. So you see…nobody reads posts.

I crashed…It was inevitable.

It felt like I was back in 2016 and the only thing I really wanted, was to sleep. When I sleep I am at peace - at least that's what my mind constantly tells me. Some kind of internal mechanism to keep me safe. That resulted in a work - eat - sleep routine. I was reminded what kind of life I had prior to 2016 and the path I had taken to survive. I got this new amazing friend and still I was a mess. This was not his fault and I made a commitment to him that I will try as hard as I can to get myself together (again).

Only one problem…I had to start from scratch. I started to run again every day after work and very quickly it was clear that it was not going to be easy. I couldn't even run 5km in a normal fashion. I couldn't hold it for 100m without stopping and taking a break to breathe. It looked like mission impossible the first weeks. My mindset was put to the test. A couple of years ago I wouldn't even start a run if it was under 20km. I was confronted with the fact that there was a time in my life that I was training for a 75km ultra run…and look at me now…an easy 5k was a big struggle.

Back on track

As a former ambassador for the Trailseries I couldn't stay away from the 5 events they had organized (from March to May). And also this year I did all the 21K trail runs. On every of these trails I died a 1000 times - at least that was what it felt like. I decided these would be the last events that I would participate in.
It was pretty clear that it wasn't going to be an easy journey.

In the following months I kept going with my “start to run” training after work. A couple of times I was lucky and even got some thunder, lightning and rain shower runs…they gave me so much energy…feeling one with the elements of nature - just like old times.
After running 5km every day for four months, I suddenly felt it again. A random run…almost home…it felt so great that I decided to add 5km to my run and ran 10km in one piece. It was a victory. At that time it was summer and the temperature after work was too high to keep me motivated. So I decided to start running early in the morning, just before work. (Timeline = July)
First weeks were scanning the new area for multiple routes. I found a base route of 8km soon to be expanded to 10km. The plan: running 10km every day before work.

Into the dark

At a sudden point in the year, it starts to get dark in the morning. Nothing wrong with that. Being an early bird runner, running towards sunrise is one of my favorites. But running in complete darkness is something I've never done before. Lucky for me this does not start overnight. So I had some time to adjust to this new situation. Running in complete darkness (wait…I do have a lamp of course) gave me some new challenges that I had to learn the hard way. More than once I stumbled over a branch and hit the ground with my face, elbow or knee. The hardest thing to overcome was the anxiety. There is still some fear between my ears. It took me two years to overcome this fear. But I'm getting there.
In 2024 I ran over 1000km from July till the end of the year just by running before work.
The plan is to keep running 10km before work (every single day)

My new best friend

After I had to say goodbye to my beautiful friend Otto in the beginning of 2023, my heart broke. This was another kick in my face after all the years of harassment. I had to take time to grieve.
But only two months later, life took a turn…I saw Whisper for the first time. And I knew immediately that we would become running buddies. From a little devil's pup to my best friend. For 9 months I kept it a secret. The first year of a border collie's life, you are not allowed to run (at least not in high density), so we did a lot of hiking. All that time we spent on building a relationship of friendship and trust. Now he is always by my side, wherever I am.
It has been such an amazing road so far. Not only are border collies very intelligent creatures, they are also fantastic runners. It took me a while to teach him that less is more. And by less I mean “no flying, mister”...go easy and enjoy the journey.

If you teach a dog to run fast, he will do just that. But that's not who I am. So I taught him to run slow in combination with walking and some “stop and enjoy the view" moments. And of course I taught him what posing for a picture means.

As soon as he turned 1 year (when his bones were mature and fully grown), I geared him up and we started our running training. That included slow and high speed, technical courses and climbing. In 2025 he will come with me to the mountains. Even though we already had an amazing time during his first year, as soon as we got serious about running, and the fact that his mindset is also maturing, the fun became joy. A feeling that I lost for a long time.

I know I said I would never participate in a running event and certainly not with Whisper. We accidentally did it anyway ;-)
In December we were running in our big forest and we heard music and loud talking in the distance. So we decided to take a look. Before we knew what was going on, a big group of runners came towards us, so we stepped aside and let them pass by. Then I looked at Whisper and said to him “let's catch them”. Because I didn't know how Whisper would react to a running crowd, we slowly approached the last running group and stayed behind them. After I saw that Whisper was ok with the situation, I decided to try out a race. I let him run besides some runners who were ok with that and we started to catch up with other groups. It was an amazing experience. “Our first running event”

About “interview with the world”

Well, well,...remember the interview blog? No? Better go and read that first. (Interview)
After I posted that blog, the questions kept coming even though I specifically asked not to. Unbelieve, resentment,...but also stories of others who had to deal with a similar situation.
There will not be a next ”everything you always wanted to ask…”, that boat has sailed.
For example: People are shocked that I've blocked them from accessing my Instagram profile. But they are not shocked that they are good friends with the enemy. There is a word for that: hypocrites.

For a long time I have been Angry at myself. I blamed myself for not being strong enough. I blamed myself for everything that was happening. I even blamed myself for being in so much pain. I didn't want to let them get under my skin...but actually they already were.

When I asked people for help, they ignored me. And very soon I found myself in a very lonely place. Crashing was my wakeup call. The scars however are for life. I tried so hard to become social again. “Go to that social run”, I kept telling myself. And I did, but who was also there? Yep…them again. So I turned the other way and went back home. All my attempts to participate on a social run have completely failed since.

“Well Mr devil and companions…the deal is off”.

Maybe social is not my thing anymore. I have come to terms with the fact that I only have the opportunity to run with another person once, maybe twice a year. And alldough I miss human companionship and a good conversation, I have my new friend who is a very good listener.

What the future brings

“My final destination”. When you reach a specific age, little happy moments become much more important. I would like to spend the few years I have left, in peace with my best friend.
Hiking and running, enjoying every moment in beautiful places. Our little adventures. What more can one wish for.

I still have to keep running to stay alive.
My body is still my enemy, that will never change.

But I'm not alone anymore…I have a new friend for life and I'm finally happy again.