Maarten van der Weijden
‘I feel comfortable being uncomfortable’
He has some list of exceptional performances to his name: World Open Water Champion, a gold medal at the 2008 Olympic Games and swimming the 200-kilometre-long Elfstedentocht (Eleven Cities Tour) within 75 hours. And yet, Maarten van der Weijden (39) is just like any other person. And he too rediscovered the bike during the corona pandemic.
Maarten allocates his time practically; he can even answer the questions for this interview while on the bike at home. He is cycling a virtual tour through the Austrian mountains. ‘This morning, I got a bit stressed planning my fitness activities, so I thought what would be better than giving an interview while gently cycling on the Tacx bike?’, says Maarten without even a huff or a puff. The Bolletjescafé The 2008 Olympic Champion grew up in the West Frisian Warmenhuizen. The Bolletjescafé is in that village, a white building painted from top to bottom in red dots. The pub got its name (translated as: polka dot bar) thanks to regular guest and former professional road cyclist Steven Rooks. The landlord promised Rooks that he would paint the building yellow if Rooks won the Tour de France. The cyclist didn’t bring home the yellow jersey, however he was crowned best climber and returned with the polka dot jersey. The landlord kept his promise and the pub got an even more colorful paint job!
As a child, Maarten was a big fan of Steven Rooks and that manifested in the dunes of Schoorl. With his father, he would cycle up and down the sandy hills and they held their own ‘dune classification’. During the climbs he felt like a true Rooks. Not only did they cycle together, but Maarten’s father also introduced him to all kinds of sports such as athletics, football and volleyball. It soon became apparent that Maarten was an excellent swimmer with a real top sport mentality. He was no stranger to success. Twelve years ago, after recovering from cancer, he won a gold medal at the Olympic Games. He also became the 25-kilometer World Open Water Champion, but perhaps even more importantly: he swam the Elfstedentocht, through which he raised millions for cancer research. It was his second attempt; the year before he had to give up a few dozen kilometres before the finish. The whole of the Netherlands followed him minute by minute and watched what an extreme toll this monster tour took on his body.
Survivor guilt Maarten is fully aware that such performances are anything but healthy: ‘No, I am not sacrificing my body for cancer research. I was lucky enough to recover from leukaemia when I was 19. Many other patients weren’t that fortunate. I committed myself to increasing other people’s happiness out of a sort of survivor’s guilt, which happens to coincide with the fact that I love personal challenges.’ Willpower That’s not a complete coincidence of course. Van der Weijden seeks out challenges: ‘I feel comfortable being uncomfortable. I can cope well if lots of things are going to happen that are out of my control. I only control my own body to a certain extent after all.’ When he didn’t succeed with the first Elfstedentocht he tried a second time, not knowing whether he would manage then either.
‘All I knew was that the first time, I had swum for three days straight and then I had to give up. Would I get further than those 163 kilometres? You know, I know my body very well. Some journalists want to hear a mental fairy-tale, that I see my body as a robot that I configure and it’s ready to go. However, my success lies more in willpower. It was an extreme dream, and no one believed I could do it. The critics were proved right the first time and I had to stop in Dokkum. The second time, I had an overwhelming fear it wouldn’t work again. Would the Netherlands be so compassionate that time? Probably not. On the way, I ate and slept more than I did the first time. And despite painful chafing I made the finish line.’
Twelve million euros With two Elfstedentochten, Maarten’s swimming raised almost 12 million euros. That money financed 27 cancer studies. Perhaps less important but a nice bonus was that due to this, Maarten himself adopted a better lifestyle: ‘I had put on a lot of weight before the Elfstedentocht. I weighed 110 kilos, which gave me a great energy buffer. I readily grabbed crisps, soft drinks and biscuits. That felt good in the short term but in the longer term, I feel a lot better with less weight. I currently weigh 96 kilos, which feels great. It was a behaviour pattern aimed at short term gratification. I had to unlearn that.’ Meanwhile, Maarten keeps peddling on the bike.
While chatting, he realises he is doing a sort of dune classification like he used to do, only a bit tougher: ‘I’ve just realised this ride is really tough, but I see that I am climbing a mountain of 10% at my highest gear. That’s not going to work of course!’ Maarten doesn’t just cycle on his home trainer. If you live in Waspik, you want to see how beautiful the surroundings are. ‘When you’re cycling, you are at the right pace to observe things. For example, De Biesbosch National Park, the Loon and Drunen dunes and further afield you have lovely cities like Breda, Den Bosch and Eindhoven. That makes the diversity and liveability of Brabant great. The nice thing about cycling is that you can do it with your family as well as alone and then purely for fun.’
Ingrained Maarten’s daughters are 5 and 3 years old. The eldest, in particular, was put on a bike during the corona crisis: ‘She already cycles between Waspik and Waalwijk. That’s about 20 kilometres there and back. She enjoys it but has to be rewarded with an ice cream in Waalwijk for her efforts. During the pandemic, we noticed the children were getting a bit lazy. So, we really tackled that. We went out on scooters and balance bikes every day.’ Even Maarten is secretly more of a car driver than a cyclist, but the corona crisis caused him to take a more conscious approach. ‘Due to all the measures, the world slowed down. If I could hold on to a bit of that calmness, then there would be more room to grab the bike.’
‘I no longer choose the quickest option. I would say to other car drivers: try it once in any case. You may like it. It’s hard to break patterns of behaviour. If it was easy to stop smoking, more people would do it. I hope people continue cycling more. Even when the virus has calmed down.’
Cycling still seems to be going well for Maarten, since chatting away, and without panting, grunting or groaning, he has already covered about 50 kilometres.