Photo Tijn Dekkers/Stichting Zevenheuvelen In less than one month from now, two teachers will participate in the 24-hour race during the Zevenheuvelen Wintertrail in Nijmegen. In doing so, they will collect tuition fees for two students who are less fortunate financially.
Gabriel Moinet (Soil Biology) and Filipe Ribeiro da Cunha (Behavioral Ecology) are taking on this ultra running challenge. ‘Filipe is a good friend of mine’, Moinet says. ‘We do crazy things together quite often.’
Still, he is a little apprehensive about this 24-hour race. ‘I’m moderately well prepared and I barely run beyond ten, fifteen kilometers at a time these days. We will be practicing some long distances by doing a training of ten times six kilometers, for example. That’s mainly mental training, because physically you can do more harm than good in a month.’
Moinet is coordinating the 5-day course on carbon farming that he is now crowdfunding for. The course was held last September for the first time. It was set up as a PhD course from WIMEK – the graduate school for environmental and climate scientists. Half of the 15 participants were from WUR.
‘Our PhD students get bench money to get trained. But I realized that many others don’t get such financial support, and for them the threshold to participate is much higher.’ He therefore decided to link his participation in the 24-hour race to a good cause. ‘We are now raising money to pay tuition for two students from less privileged financial situation.’
With patience
Although there is also a duo race, in which one runner relays the other and participants can recover between runs, both men run the 24-hour race individually. Moinet expects to cover more than 100 kilometers. ‘Because it is in the forest, the conditions are more challenging. I hope to finish at 120 or 125 kilometers.’
He compares the 24-hour race – which consists of a 5-km lap that participants will run as many times as possible – to the ongoing efforts that addressing the climate and biodiversity crisis will require. ‘We have to take care of our planet. With patience and unconditionally. Just as we will continue to run our laps.’
