Dodentocht 2023

The word Dodentocht means Death March.

In 1970, sixty-seven walkers started out in the Belgian village of Bornem to walk the first Dodentocht. Of that number, just 47 finished the walk of 100km within 24 hours. And so the Dodentocht was born. The next year, there were 202 starters. The following year, there were 397 starters. The numbers continued to grow until by 2019, the organisers had to limit the number of entrants to 13000 people. In 2020, due to the pandemic, the organised event did not take place in Bornem, but 17000 people did a virtual Dodentocht in their own locality. There was no real Dodentocht in 2021 either, again due to the Covid pandemic. In 2022, the organisers decided that the summer heat was too extreme, and the route was shortened to 65km. But in 2023, the Dodentocht was back in full, and thousands of people took part, myself among them.

The challenge in the Dodentocht is to walk 100km in less than 24 hours. It is not a race. There is no prize or other special recognition for the first people to finish. It is purely about finishing in the timeline. The route does a few loops around Bornem, before heading out into the countryside in a long circuit before eventually coming back to Bornem for the finish.

I first came across the event when I was doing a marathon in 2022 in the same part of Belgium. The Great Breweries Marathon of 2022 (not documented in these posts) was arranged to take in the Duvel, Cornet, and Palm breweries, and took place in May 2022. It was as a result that I heard about the Dodentocht. Early in 2023, while having a beer with my friend Matthias, I mentioned it. A couple of beers later and the conversation was along the lines of “I will if you will”, and so we agreed to give it a go. Registration for the event opened on 25^th March, and I made my registration on the 26^th. I was committed to it at that stage.

That is how it came about that Matthias and I lined up at the start of the Dodentocht on the evening of 11^th August 2023. There were thousands of people there, all lined up and eager to start.

As the evening turned to twilight, and twilight to darkness, we made our way as part of the huge crowd through the streets of Bornem. At times, the route would go from a wide street to a narrow lane, and the crowd would get all bunched up as it negotiated the narrowing route. Along the way, the citizens of Bornem, many of them in party mood, turned out to sit in their lawn chairs along the route, playing music and cheering everyone on. Eventually, the crown left the streets of Bornem and headed out into the countryside. With no spectators to encourage the walkers, the feeling of being part of something special was motivation enough. The crowd had begun to string itself out, and people were using torches to see the way through the countryside. The long line of pin-point lights far out in front, and just as far behind, made its way in a snaking line past fields and canals.

There were refreshment stops, and I had also brought a stock of high sugar snacks. Just getting enough calories is important in an event like this one. Sometime after midnight, the rain started. It was a drizzle at first, become real rain sometime about 3 A.M. I had not brought any raingear, but I kept going. After all, the forecast was for a reasonably bright day ahead, and I would dry out in due course. The rain lightened up before we made the stop for breakfast just after 07:30, though the air was still damp.

At this stage, we were well past halfway. I had counted up the kilometres to halfway, and now I was counting them down towards the finish. After halfway, the next important point psychologically was shortly before 60km. Now I had just marathon distance to go. At 66km, I was two thirds of the way there. There was more rain during the morning, but not as long, and anyway, I didn’t really care. Nothing was going to stop me now. Reaching 75km was an important point in terms of confidence in finishing. At each of two checkpoints close to 80km, we treated ourselves to beer. Whether it was the beer or something else, my speed increased from that point. This was in spite of blistered feet. I had felt the first blister not far after 50km, and the second one after 70km, but in each case, the pain soon subsided, and I kept on walking. Getting to 80km meant that I now had less than half marathon distance to go. The finish was calling me, drawing me forwards.

With the extra speed after 80km, I was passing lots of people. I kept it up, past 90km. I was into the last 10km. Coming back into Bornem, there was a sign for 5km to go. It seemed a long distance from there to the 4km marker. That was where my third and final blister struck. It slowed me right down again, and it seemed to take forever to reach the 3km marker. With the pain from the blister once again subsiding, I made it to the 2km marker. I was truly into Bornem now, but running low on energy. As I passed the 1km marker, the good citizens of Bornem were out in force, clapping and cheering every walker as they passed. And so I walked confidently down the main street of the town, to the finish. Matthias arrived very soon after me.

It was done. I had accepted the challenge that is the Dodentocht, and I had come through it.

You might ask what does one get for completing a walk of 100km? What is the reward for a night completely devoid of sleep? What is the reward for the sore feet and the aching muscles? And the simple answer to such a question has to be, how do you put a price on such things. And so the material rewards have no monetary value. There is a certificate. And there is a small medal. On each marathon that I have walked, everyone who finished got a large medallion. The size of the medal must be inversely related to the effort, because the medal for completing the Dodentocht is very small indeed. The real statement of achievement is in the certificate.

And now for some statistics. My recorded time was 21 hours and 19 minutes. That means my average speed was just under 5km/hour, or about 3 miles/hour. That includes break times, rest stops, and so on. My total step count for the walk was 143,562 steps. My step count for the calendar day of 12^th August was 124,175. That is a personal record that is unlikely to be beaten.