The ‘WENRunning for Climate’ team ran the Climate Marathon, a 42-kilometre relay race. Own photo Last weekend, groups of WUR employees took part in the Climate Marathon and the Climate Classic cycling tour. This weekend, Tim van Hattum and a group of ten colleagues, former colleagues and climate experts from his network will be running the Mont Blanc Marathon – in their climate stripe shirts – to draw attention to climate change.
The race that Van Hattum (Climate Programme Leader, Environmental Science Group) will run on Sunday is 42 kilometres long and has 2,540 metres of elevation gain. Six others from his group will attempt the trail run marathon distance in the French mountain village of Chamonix, near the border with Italy. The rest of the group will run a shorter distance.
Van Hattum sees many parallels between tackling climate change and running a marathon. ‘In both cases, you need to have a clear goal in mind and a long run-up period. The longer you wait, the more complicated it becomes to complete the marathon. This marathon takes it a step further because it’s not just uphill, but uphill and downhill. ‘In the world, there are always other things that demand attention, causing you to hit deep valleys. Right now, for example, it’s the war situation in the world. This is causing attention for climate change to wane.’
Climate Classic
Last Friday, Van Hattum and his colleagues took part in the Running4Climate Climate Marathon. ‘It was a relay race: we covered the marathon distance together, but as a group we also had a number of bicycles with us. Along the way, we alternated between running and cycling. Everyone ran about fifteen kilometres – a warm-up for what awaits us this coming weekend.’
In addition to Van Hattum’s team, ‘WENRunning for Climate’ also participated in the climate marathon, and team ‘WSER for Climate’ participated in Cycling4Climate’s Climate Classic on bicycles.
‘We started running at half past seven and followed a route that was mostly through the forest, so we ran in the shade a lot’, researcher Marlies van Ree (Regional Development and Land Use, Wageningen Environmental Research) from the ‘WENRunning for Climate’-team told Radio Gelderland. ‘We were a group of six and had arranged it so that everyone first ran a longer stretch, then had a chance to recover on their bikes, and then had to run a short stretch. In the end, everyone ran about 14 kilometres and cycled the rest of the marathon distance.’
‘No one was injured and there were few complaints’, says Van Ree with a smile. ‘Climate change requires a certain urgency. We need to get moving – we did that literally, to draw attention to climate change. That is also desperately needed. It was very hot that day; the reason we were running was very tangible.’
The cyclists of “WSER for Climate” also recognize this, dividing their 250-kilometre route into five sections of approximately 50 kilometres each and riding from rest stop to rest stop.
Glaciers
The United Nations has declared 2025 the International Year of Glacier Conservation, explains Van Hattum. ‘We also refer to glaciers as the visible indicators of climate change. Retreating glaciers due to melting ice are the first visible consequences of climate change that we are seeing in Europe.’
Mountain villages draw attention to climate change via information boards on top of the glaciers. ‘When I was on a walking holiday at Mont Blanc last year, we visited a cave under the Mer de Glace-glacier in the Chamonix valley. Signs along the glacier indicate how far it has receded over the years. In the cave, you can say goodbye to the concept of a glacier, as it disappears before your eyes. It’s very bizarre and impressive.’
Translated with DeepL
