NSK Meerkamp 2022

Last weekend, Asterix went to multiple competitions in the hunt for new PBs!

On Friday evening, some runners went to Utrecht. Jordi ran his first sub-2 this year, breaking his PB with an impressive 1:57.73! Domingos, perhaps inspired by Jordi, then ran a new PB on the 400 in 55.91! It was the first of many sub-56 performances by our Portuguese Secretary! Then, Matthijs ran the 1500. He was a massive 9 seconds faster than 3 weeks ago, shattering his PB to run 4:05.77. With this, he managed to win his heat! As Ton put it, that sub-4 is within reach! The last event of the evening was the 3000, with multiple Gauls running it. Casper broke the club record with an amazing 8:06.81! Casper is truly on fire this season! Lennert then ran a time of 9:20.28, and Adomas ran 9:23.42. Great work!

Happy faces after some great results!

Then on Saturday, some Gauls went all the way to Groningen to participate in the NSK Meerkamp! Some joined the decathlon or heptathlon, while others participated in the running-pentathlon. Then there were also those who didn’t want to compete in a full combined events competition, and therefore joined separate events. Then there was also Matthijs, who wanted to support his fellow Gauls. Big shoutout to him for showing up!

Some Gauls already went to Groningen on Friday, so that they could sleep some longer before their events started on Saturday. The beer Oscar brought with him really helped the Gauls with falling asleep. A good call, as the people that only traveled on Saturday had to wake up very early!

To start the decathlon, the men ran the 100m. Jim ran a new PB of 11.98 to finish second, Gijs ran 12.06 which landed him in third place, Boudewijn ran 12.99 and got 17th, and Oscar ran 13.40, which was enough for the 21st position. Then for the first event of the heptathlon – the 100mH – Justine ran 18.01, finishing 5th, and Bente ran 18.33, finishing 8th! A good start of the decathlon and heptathlon!

Bente being too fast for the photographer in her hurdles race.

Jens, Lorens, Ramon and Kjell then ran the first event of their running-combined events, the 100m. Lorens surprised everyone (including himself) by running a 12.30, a 0.68s PB, a third place in the standings. Jens ran 12.43, finishing fourth. Kjell finished in 11th with 13.02, and Ramon ran 13.25, beating Oscar’s time to finish 12th.

Vroom vroom!

The next event in the decathlon was the long jump. Jim did a great job with his jump of 5.85, beating Gijs who jumped a great 5.68! Boudewijn jumped 4.45, which was the exact same distance Oscar jumped. Unfortunately, Oscar injured himself, which meant that he had to pull out of the competition after trying a bit in the shot put. He still threw 12.77m, winning the event by a large margin! Jim threw 10.27m, Boudewijn threw 8.79m and Gijs threw 8.26m.

Boudewijn focused on throwing that shot put as far as possible.
Oscar throwing 12.77m while being injured!

Carl participated in the long jump, the separate event, and he jumped to a distance of 6.39m!

The second event of the heptathlon was the high jump. Bente jumped 1.54m, and Justine jumped 1.27m. Audrey participated in the separate event, and cleared a height of 1.36m! Earlier that day, she competed in the 100mH, where she ran 21.08!

Then it was time for the second event of the running-pentathlon, the 800m! Jens did an amazing job with his 1:57.10, which was more than enough to get him the win. Lorens ran 2:06.00, enough for second place, while saving energy for the coming events. Ramon ran 2:11.24, which was a 7th place, only 0.09s behind 5th place… Kjell ran 2:15.47, finishing 10th. The runners had now finished the 800, and could start to prepare for the 5000 later that day. With the 5000 in prospect and the temperature rising, it was now that the first runners were starting to question life decisions.

Back to the heptathlon! It was time for shot put, the third event of the first day. Bente threw 8.30m, and Justine threw 7.32m. With only the 200m to go, the first day was almost over for our heptathletes.

In the decathlon, high jump was the next event. Jim and Boudewijn both jumped an impressive height of 1.81m! Gijs jumped 1.63m.

Jim on his way to win the high jump in the decathlon.

Then, Merel and Audrey competed in the separate 200m, running 33.94 and 30.38 respectively. Great work!

Then, the final event of the running-pentathlon of the first day took place: the 5000m. Jens lapped the entire field, running 16:10.27. Finishing in third was Lorens with a new PB of 17:45.53. He got outkicked in the last 100m, but he still managed to finish 3rd. Ramon finished in 4th with a time of 17:57.45, and Kjell finished in 9th place with 19:37.09. After day 1, Jens held the lead with Lorens in 2nd, Ramon 7th and Kjell 10th.

Matthijs can be a bit sadistic sometimes.
Lorens will not be running a 5k anytime soon.

Then it was time for the women to finish day 1 of the heptathlon with the 200m. Justine ran 26.97, and Bente ran 31.48. A great ending of a great first day!

Bente during her race, looking forward to going to sleep.

The men in the decathlon finished their day with a 400m. Jim ran a great time of 53.26, and Boudewijn ran 59.10. Gijs ran 59.46, after stumbling 30 meters before the finish. Who knows what he could have run without that fall…

Gijs showing us what it means to push yourself to (and over) the limit. Credits to Domingos for the meme!

After the events of the first day, the un-official Dutch Championships vlalikken took place! Asterix fielded three teams, all of which were unfortunately not strong enough to qualify for the final. Clearly, we should practice our licking skills a bit. To get an impression of the event, see the pictures below.

In the evening, some great food was provided by the organization, and an amazing party was held in Groningen. Many combined-events athletes joined the party, even though they had to compete the very next day!

Ramon had payed close attention to the theme of the party.

After the party, there were some that felt the need to add another event to their weekend, the Greek 400. Then, it was finally time to sleep. Everyone was jealous of Ramon’s massive inflatable mattress.

The next day, everyone sleeping in the tents had to wake up around 8 for breakfast. Not everyone left their beds immediately though, especially Ramon slept for a bit longer. Considering his bed, that made sense. After having a nice breakfast, it was time to prepare for the events of the second day, trying to ignore the muscle soreness!

The first event of the second day was the 110mH for the decathletes. Jim ran 16.91, Gijs ran 18.32 and Boudewijn ran 20.04. The best thing about starting your day with hurdles is that you are certain that your day cannot get any worse!

Hessel participated in the javelin throw, also in the early morning. He threw the javelin to a distance of 30.06m.

Then it was time for the women to start the second day of the heptathlon with some long jump. Bente jumped 4.47m, and Justine jumped 3.91m after which she unfortunately retired with an injury. We hope you recover soon! Audrey competed in the separate event, where she jumped to a distance of 3.04m!

Bente jumping to a distance of 4.47m!

The men then continued the decathlon with the discus throw. Jim threw the discus to a distance of 30.43m, while Boudewijn threw 19.39m and Gijs threw 17.43m.

The heptathletes then had their sixth event, the javelin throw! Bente threw 26.56m! Now she could prepare for the final event of her NSK, the 800m.

In the meantime, the decathletes had to do pole-vault! Jim jumped 3.20m, Boudewijn jumped 2.60m and Gijs jumped 2.00m.

Jim enjoying the sun during his polevault.

Then it was time for the running-pentathletes to do a 400m! In the first heat, Lorens took the win with a new PB of 54.95, while Kjell ran a 1:00.35. In the third heat, Jens convincingly won with a time of 50.95! Apparently going to the NSK party the day before the race (see the latest Tip of the Week on Instagram) really works! Ramon finished in 58.01. With only the 1500 remaining, things were about to get exciting!

Ramon in full focus!

Merel competed in the separate 400, where she ran a time of 1:23.44!

And then, finally, the last event of the heptathlon: the 800m! Bente finished in 3:02.44. With this, she secured 7th place in the standings with a point total 3100 points!

The men still had two events to go! First, the javelin. Jim threw the javelin to a distance of 45.72m, Boudewijn threw 29.01, and Gijs threw 27.09m.

The running-pentathlon was about to reach its conclusion! In the closing 1500m, Jens easily won with a time of 4:28.29. Lorens got 3rd, again after getting outkicked by the same guy who outkicked him in the 5000. Joke’s on him though, as Lorens secured a silver medal in the NSK Loopmeerkamp with this! Ramon finished in 4:43.65, and Kjell finished in 5:07.35. With a 1-2 the running-pentathlon went great for Asterix. Ramon finished 6th and Kjell finished 10th.

Some beautiful medals after some great races!

In the very last event of the decathlon, Jim ran 4:52.12, Boudewijn ran 5:39.56, and Gijs finished in 6:14.23. With these performances, Jim scored the most points in the decathlon, with a total of 5663. Given the rule that in the NSK, the lowest-scoring event is scrapped, he got second in the NSK. Gijs finished in 11th place with a total of 3785 points, just ahead of Boudewijn who scored 3753 points, finishing 13th.

After the last event, pizzas were ordered and the travel back went mostly smoothly. Unfortunately when turning the SSC bus, the bus got stuck in the grass next to the road. Luckily, with so many strong Gauls present pushing the truck back upon the road didn’t pose a big challenge. With the track already in poor condition, a big sorry to Vitalis for giving them something new to fix!

Whoops!

All-in-all, it was a great NSK with a lot of fun a some great PBs! Asterix is looking forward to the next NSK!

Pictures by Lars van der Valk

Written by Lorens