Coen van der Zanden from Sint-Michielsgestel looked death straight in the eye three times. After three heart attacks, he cycles from The Hague to Paris. With the four-day monster tour of 550 kilometers he wants to raise money for healthy hearts.
He arrives in Baarle-Nassau on Thursday afternoon with sweat on his forehead. With 92 kilometers in the legs, it is time for the second stopover. “It’s going well,” says Coen enthusiastically. “It’s a long way, but if you train enough anyone can do this. It’s great that I can do that.”
Coen became familiar with heart disease at a young age. “My father died of his fourth heart attack at the age of 56. It runs in the family.” At the age of thirty, Coen started taking blood pressure lowering and cholesterol inhibitors.
“I was stressed, smoked and was way overweight.”
“I was stressed, smoked and was way overweight,” he admits. At the age of 40 he developed the same heart problems as his father. It was due to a coronary artery stenosis. He changed course and stopped smoking, started exercising more and lost a lot of weight. Yet three years later, he was back in the hospital with a heart attack. A third followed shortly after.
The cycling tour runs along different stages of about 125 to 175 kilometers. Every day the participants cycle for about six to eight hours for the Heart Foundation. A total of 97 participants will cycle the so-called Cycle Paris. Thursday is the first day.
“Nobody can keep it dry under the Eiffel Tower.”
The participants will be in Paris next Monday. “Once under the Eiffel Tower, nobody can keep it dry. That is really a goosebumps moment”, Anna Koster of the Heart Foundation knows. Coen also expects that he will have to shed a tear. “That’s really the end of a period for me,” he explains.
The counter stands at almost a ton. Scientists use the money to research solutions to detect cardiovascular diseases earlier and treat them better.
Yet the monster journey is not enough for Coen. He will continue cycling in the fall. Then he wants to cycle 750 kilometers in five days, from Apeldoorn to Berlin. “I’m really looking forward to it. It’s a relatively flat stretch, so it suits my health and what I want to do. I like the challenge and I love nothing more than cycling.”