At 89 years old, Blanche Troost from Roosendaal is the oldest female participant in the Nijmegen Four Days Marches. She was almost finished as a participant, because she arrived too late at the start on Wednesday and was then no longer allowed to participate. Blanche didn’t give up and left anyway, catching up with the other walkers. Now it appears that she can officially walk again on Thursday.
“We should have just driven black,” says Blanche on the way back from the Four Days Marches on Wednesday. Because at the station near Boxmeer things went wrong. “We could immediately board the train there, but decided to buy a ticket on the platform first.” She and her hiking friend missed the train because of this and eventually arrived at the start almost half an hour late.
“He wondered, what is the oldest contestant doing here in the wild?”
Blanche runs the Four Days Marches together with a 75-year-old girlfriend. They stay with her youngest son Frank, just across the German border. It takes the two of them an hour every day to get to Nijmegen. That shows their fanaticism.
The message that they were excluded from participation, the walkers took for granted on Wednesday. “We were no longer given a route, but just started walking.” On the way someone from the organization drove by. He recognized her by a special flag with the number twelve on it. “He wondered, what is the oldest contestant doing here in the wild? I explained that we were trying to catch up with everyone.”
“This is quite an experience at our age. But we’re not in a retirement home, are we?”
That conversation and a number of photos they had taken along the way, among other things, turned out to be enough evidence to show that they had also walked the entire route on Wednesday. “Afterwards, we explained to the organization what had happened at the station that morning. We were then told that we can officially participate again on Thursday. Yes, we jumped a hole in the air!”
Blanche is an experienced hiker. Walking thirty kilometers a day four days in a row is not a difficult task for her. She has therefore not specially prepared for the Four Days Marches. “I used to walk a lot with my husband, all over Europe. He passed away in 2018. Now I walk a lot with my girlfriend and in the winter I spend four months in Portugal where I also walk a lot.”
How is she going to make sure that she does show up on time at the start tomorrow morning? The organization has written the start time on its card just to be sure. “And we go to bed early. This is quite an experience at our age. But we’re not in a retirement home, are we? We’re making something great out of it!”
The organization of the Nijmegen Four Days Marches was not available for comment on Wednesday.
