Other Interest
Other interests, that's a long story...
- running marathons:
April 4 2022, I finished my 30th marathon of Rotterdam (you can verify this at this website), bringing my total number of 34 completed marathons. - The super marathon master's website will show within a few weeks (or months…?) under “Mannen” that I am currently a 30 times finisher at position 21 or higher of the list of super marathon master’s (i.e., between all people that have completed the Rotterdam marathon 10 times or more...)
My personal record is 3h19m (reached in 1992, if I remember well). I further have run the marathons in New York (1991 and 2010), Berlin (1992), and Amsterdam (1993). My first Rotterdam marathon was in 1991 that I finished in 3h24m. Then I ran all the 25 editions between 1991 and 2015, and the 5 editions of 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022.
and much more:
- playing the piano
(classical music by e.g. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, ... and various jazz standards including Misty, Take-5, ...). - long distance walking including the
- famous Dutch Pieterpad as composed of many stages (alltogether more than 450km) which we finalized many years ago;
- Nijmeegse Vierdaagse (Walk of the World) (4 days of 50km) which I completed July 21-24 2009. - long distance skating: I'm member of the Dutch "Vereniging De Friesche Elf Steden" that, in case of a heavy winter, organizes the famous "Elf Steden Tocht" consisting of a 200km skating tour on natural ice. I'm still dreaming of skating that route in a year with a heavy winter in which I'm also owner of a starting license (a type of lottery system is in use here).
- sailing, in a small boat, on a large lake, with heavy wind.
- drinking beer, especially of Belgium type...
- seeing a sun eclipse: March 29, I survived the sun eclipse in Turkey: during 3m40s the sun disappeared. For a beautiful picture of what we have seen, see this page