Iron(wo)man Andrea Scharmga
Last Sunday, July 31st. over 2000 athletes participated in the Ironman, in Maastricht. Andrea Scharmga, NUTRIM - CAPHRI PhD Student completed all three parts of this superhuman effort (3.8 km. swimming in the river Meuse, followed by 180 km. biking through the hillside, both in The Netherlands and in Belgium, and finally running a full marathon through the city of Maastricht) in 12 hours, 45 minutes and 23 seconds.
Andrea: Swimming went smoothly. During biking I had to be cautious because of the rain. The first two rounds of the mrathon I was okay, but during rounds three and four I had a hard time. Then, finally, the very last kilometers through the city centre, it was like I was growing wings, and all went well again.
Now I have to recover and then I am going to focuss on a new challenge!
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Students were issued student numbers (ID numbers) and the first student (alphabetically) was Ward Alfenaar. Today, 40 years later, we checked in with Ward to talk about his memories from those early days of studying in Maastricht.
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