An inspiring challenge | Maarten Guns
Maarten Guns, Director of TMC New Product Introduction in The Netherlands, tells you about how a sports challenge inspired him.
"Someone once said: ‘Treat your body like a Temple'. And so I did …
As director at TMC NPI and father of 2 kids, I take my personal health and vitality very serious. Finding the right balance in work vs family time, chasing ambitious goals vs relaxation, etc. All struggles many of us are dealing with, including myself.
In 2017, TMC challenged me to join the Swim to Fight Cancer event. Normally I wouldn’t join, but this time I was triggered by the charity cause to fight cancer. Besides that, TMC offered professional training from Squadra to learn how to swim 2 kilometer in open water, which was absolutely necessary.
The combination of reaching a vitality goal, having fun as a team, motivate each other to go on and help other people in need gave me a tremendous good feeling.
As a team, we trained for a five months period and at the end, all contestants proudly reached the finish. As a result, TMC raised 3,300 euro for cancer research. The combination of reaching a vitality goal, having fun as a team, motivate each other to go on and help other people in need gave me a tremendous good feeling. I really got the hang of it
Last New Year, I was wondering what would be a great vitality goal for 2018. Something challenging… something outside in the open… I decided to start running in the woods. I challenged myself to run a total of 500 kilometers in 2018. That will be about 10 kilometers per week. I never did before so I thought this would be a great challenge. To make it accountable, I register my runs with my Fitbit. And I promised my girlfriend to take her out for a 2-star restaurant treatment if I succeed. So I definitely feel the pressure ;)
After the first 3 months, I’m proud to say I’m well on track and very excited about the progress. Besides running, I take every opportunity to walk (as a meeting with a colleague or during lunch), swim and play field hockey as well. My enthusiasm about living a healthy and balanced lifestyle, has a very positive impact on me, my family, my direct colleagues and my work. Something absolutely worth spreading.
Hopefully, this personal experience inspires you as well to take action and share your story with others."
*01-03-2019 News update: mission accomplished!
In 2018, I ran more than 600 km and of course I am very proud of this achievement.
