MUD OR SISSY?

Fisherman´s Friend Strongman Run: ELTEN‘s „strong men“ fighted for glory and honour
Weeze (Lower Rhine), 29 March 2009. It is High Noon on the ground of Weeze airport when the thundering starting signal tears through the air. A crowd of 5,925 runners, among them four brave ELTEN men, starts moving. The adrenalin level shoots up, and cold sweat starts running down the skin. 18 long kilometres and 32 dangerous obstacles lie ahead of the participants from all over the world. Every single one of them has the same goal in mind: Survive!

For our heroes, this aim alone was not really a challenge. “Sneakers? Everyone’s able to do that! We’ll run in ELTEN safety shoes!“ This decision was a blessing in disguise. Although the steel toe cap involves an extra weight, the integrated protection against ankle injuries served well when passing the obstacles. And thanks to the Sympatex® membrane, the cold water only entered into the shoes, when our ELTEN men had to run through knee-deep water…

Maintaining stability during the obstacle course didn’t pose any problems: All ELTEN runners wore safety shoes with the Biomex Protection© System.

Steep ascents, shaky tire piles, strenuous crawling in mud and torrential floods – no participant of the Fisherman’s Friend Strongman Run was spared this pain.

One of the highlights was the obstacle “spider’s web“: Between two bunkers, a malicious web was tightened for rise and descent. Definitely one of the most spectacular and most difficult climbs during the run!

After 3 hours, 44 minutes and 30 seconds, the first ELTEN man triumphantly passed the finishing line: Christoph Welbers, assistant to the management board. Quite a good result, we think!
ELTEN sales manager Christoph Hinckers, area manager Volker Weiler and IT-specialist Steve Oymanns finished the run after approximately four hours – completely exhausted, but happy. All shared the same opinion: “This run was tough and strenuous – but it really made fun!”
The price for so much pain and mud: glory and honour!

From left to right: Christoph Hinckers, Volker Weiler, Steve Oymanns, on the right: Christoph Welbers

 Runners from over 40 nations took up the challenge of their lives in Weeze. Near to airport Weeze in the Lower Rhine area, 30,000 spectators were able to observe live how four strong heroes passed this crazy run with style. At the end, the exhausted and extremely happy sportsmen share the same opinion: “We’ll be in on it again next year!”

We, the ELTEN team, are proud of our strong men!