Energy Is Not Always Comfort

We began with a simple question.

On a normal morning, what gives us the first little push of energy?

Fabrice did not begin with poetry. He began with reality.

The alarm clock.

At 4:45 in the morning, the alarm clock does not give him energy. It attacks him. He hates it. He needs it, of course, because without it he does not know where the day will go, but love is not the word. The Mayor immediately decided that the alarm clock needed therapy. If an object is hated by almost everybody, perhaps the problem is not with us. Perhaps the alarm clock itself has serious issues.

So we added a new Brida idea to the list: therapy for alarm clocks.

After the alarm clock comes the real energy.

Coffee.

Then silence.

Fabrice needs that order. First the terrible sound. Then the coffee. Then silence. And after that, when he is in his lorry, he needs music. Not soft, romantic music about houses and the good life. He needs real energy. His panel is wide, but his favourites come from the sixties, seventies, and eighties. Creedence Clearwater Revival. AC/DC. Last year he went to an AC/DC concert, and it was very good.

That made perfect sense to us. Of course AC/DC gives him energy. A man who walks 100 kilometres does not begin his day with sleepy piano music. He begins with coffee, silence, and then the road.

We asked him about young Fabrice in Cleebourg, running around outside. Where did that energy come from?

He said it was yesterday.

Not really yesterday, of course. More like fifty years ago. But in his mind the boy is still close. The energy came from friends, games, nature, freedom, curiosity, and adventure. We were curious, he said. Curiosity became adventure. Adventure became freedom. Freedom happened outside, in nature, with friends.

They played football and other games. They built little wooden houses from whatever they could find. The Mayor explained that in Australia such a thing might be called a cubby house. In England, perhaps a Wendy house. In South Africa, Janita said it depends. If it is in a tree, it is a treehouse. A Wendy house can also be something in the backyard, almost like a second residence for a child after he has destroyed his own room and needs somewhere else to continue the operation.

We stayed with the question of childhood energy.

What part of that young boy is still inside him today?

Adventure, Fabrice said. Curiosity. Freedom. Nature.

The games are a little less now. Not computer games. Those are not his thing. Card games, perhaps, but not poker. What remains strongest is freedom and adventure. And nature.

When he walks in the forest or in the fields, the silence relaxes him. He loves walking in the forest in every season: spring, summer, autumn, winter. Nature rests him. Walking rests him. Silence rests him.

At the moment, after the 100 kilometre walk, he has not started walking again because of the problem with his feet. He has gone swimming instead, and he planned to go swimming again the next evening. He thought perhaps the following week he could begin walking again.

Then came the question none of us could avoid.

Would he do another one?

He is thinking about the Dodentocht, the Death March in Belgium, possibly in August. He was not completely sure of the date, but he was already thinking.

The first 100 kilometres may not be the last.

Fabrice said it clearly. It was the first. He thinks it is not the last.

When we asked what gives energy back to him after a very long working day, he surprised us.

Speaking English, he said.

The English course gives him energy. Walking gives energy. Family gives energy. His wife gives energy. Sleep gives energy. And then, in the evening, there is another kind of energy: going under the cherry tree.

He was going to pick cherries.

Not only to eat them. To put them in a barrel and make schnapps.

This opened a completely new door.

Fabrice has cherry trees. He has mirabelle trees. He has quince. In France, he explained, if you have trees, or even if you rent trees, you can distil. You need the fruit and the equipment. He is not the professional. Someone else may be professional. Fabrice is the amateur. But he knows what he is doing.

The cherries go into a barrel. Later, in winter, when it is cold, the schnaps is ready. He does not drink much, but he tastes it.

Janita, sitting in South Africa, announced that she needed it now. Winter for us, summer for her, but need is need. The Mayor suggested sending a bottle through the internet, which may become the next great Brida technology project.

For Fabrice, picking fruit is work and rest at the same time. It can be hard work: cutting grass, cutting trees, looking after the land. But he loves it. When he picks cherries or other fruit, he feels happy. It gives him energy back.

Then the conversation turned to mirabelles. The Mayor has trees nearby, but they belong to the Power, not to him. Last year Fabrice picked mirabelles there because nobody else wanted them. The Mayor protested that this year he would arrive first, because he makes jam. Fabrice was calm. He has enough. His mother has a tree. His neighbour has more. Altogether, there are many mirabelle trees in his world.

The Mayor became depressed.

Fruitloop pointed out the obvious: now he knows where to get fruit for jam.

We decided that mirabelles must go onto the next Spud Meeting list.

The deeper question was movement.

Fabrice has a life with many roads: Cleebourg, Germany, military places, driving, walking. Does he feel more alive when he is moving?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

He is constantly moving left, right, behind, forward. Sometimes he rests at home, perhaps under the canopy, but most of the time he is in movement. His problem is simple: one day has only 24 hours, and that is too short.

The Mayor took this to its logical conclusion. What will Fabrice do one day at the gate of Saint Peter?

Fabrice said he will not ring the bell.

Perhaps he will simply walk through. Or perhaps he will turn back. The Mayor joked that maybe he wants to go downstairs. Fabrice said his friends are not down there. In the end, we reached a strange theological compromise. If he goes to hell, the day after, they will go to Saint Peter in combination.

And of course, that brought us back to AC/DC.

Highway to Hell.

It had to go on Spotify.

Then we asked whether he thinks better when his body is doing something.

Yes.

When he walks, he thinks better. He thinks about the day, relationships, friends, everything. Walking is therapy for him. When he sits at home in a chair, many thoughts arrive together. They mix. It is not good. But when he walks, the thoughts come one after another, more slowly. Walking makes thinking easier. When he climbs a steep path, when the way is hard, the body and the thinking work together.

It helps him clear the mind.

That led us to tiredness.

What kind of tiredness feels good?

At first the question needed some translation. Was he fit after the 100 kilometres? Of course not. He joked, but the point was clear. Tiredness after driving his lorry is not so good. Tiredness after working with the fruit is good. Tiredness after the 100 kilometre walk was very, very good. Positive tiredness. Hard, yes. Very hard. But positive.

The only real problem was his feet. The pain was in the soles of the feet. Without that problem, he felt the walk was very good.

The smell was another problem.

After 100 kilometres, he smelled intense. Like a rat. Or perhaps like a skunk. Marion said nothing. She knew him.

At the start of the 100 kilometre walk, the strongest feeling was not confidence and not fear. It was more like: let us see what happens. He wanted to test himself. He wanted to know if he could do it. That uncertainty made it exciting. He did not know before the walk whether he could do 100 kilometres. Now he can say that he has done it.

When did the walk become serious?

For Fabrice, it was serious from the start.

Not after 25 kilometres. Not only at the end. From the first kilometre to the last, the whole trail was serious. This told us something important about him. When he does something, he takes it seriously from beginning to end. It is the same with work, with walking, with speaking to Janita, with picking cherries. Everything matters.

But serious does not mean joyless.

We said this together. Serious and fun are not opposites. We can have fun and still take something seriously. Janita had said in the operations meeting that the most important thing is to have fun. Fabrice agreed. Serious fun is possible.

That may be one of the best descriptions of Brida itself.

The difficult moment came between 50 and 60 kilometres.

He was down. Very down. He asked himself why he should not stop. But then he answered himself. He had said he would go from beginning to end. He had already done 50 or 55 kilometres. There were 45 or 50 still ahead. It was around five or six in the morning, the hard time, the military time, the night-shift time, the time when the body wants sleep and the mind must decide.

The Mayor remembered working night shifts in a hotel. Between three and four in the morning, the body says stop. Coffee helps, but the time is hard. Fabrice remembered army guard duty too. Sleeping one or two hours, waking for two hours, sleeping again. It is a strange rhythm.

He also remembered being young in the army. Friday night disco. Saturday night disco. Sunday night disco. Then Monday morning at five or six, going back to the barracks, changing clothes, and jogging eight or ten kilometres. Sometimes there were little souvenirs left along the route from the weekend’s adventures.

No wonder, the Mayor said, that they may not want him upstairs.

Then we asked what his feet would say if they could speak after 100 kilometres.

Fabrice did not need a full sentence.

One word.

A very strong word.

His feet hated him. They would say it in French, German, or English, but it was still only one word. The Mayor suggested that next time the feet could improve their vocabulary and add an adjective: a big one, a small one, something more descriptive. For now, we left the feet with their single-word complaint.

The question of shoes and socks came next. Fabrice does not know yet whether the problem came from the shoes, the socks, or something else. In the next week or two, he planned to go to a shop and buy other trekking shoes. He has good socks, but he will also ask about other socks. He knows he must test them. Maybe by the end of July he will know what works better. New shoes need time. They must be broken in. His feet will need cream. A lot of cream.

Then we returned to training.

He had started training only ten weeks before the walk. What made him continue when training was not easy?

The answer was one word.

Stubbornness.

That is Fabrice. He said it may be the word that describes him. He is stubborn. He also joked that he has two brains in his arms and one muscle in his head. Or perhaps the other way around. In any case, the meaning was clear. He often works with the brain and only a little with the muscle, but stubbornness is part of him.

Curiosity was also there. Adventure was there. He wanted to see whether he could do it or not. Now he knows he can.

We asked what would have happened if he had stopped at 60 kilometres and called Marion to say he was finished and wanted to go home.

Again, stubbornness.

He would have gone back. He knew it was a 100 kilometre challenge. At 60 kilometres, his legs and feet were still more or less okay. It was just a low point. He told himself that if he continued, it would get better. After 70 kilometres, it was better. Later, when Marion was there and he had 83 kilometres behind him, there were only 17 left. At that point, he could have crawled. He had to finish.

When he had the 100 kilometre goal in his head, normal days did change in a practical way. After work he went home, changed clothes, and trained whether he wanted to or not. Four or five days a week he walked. Two or three days he swam. One day he rested. For the last two months before the trail, six days a week had some kind of training.

He would say to himself: you must train.

Stubbornness helped. But it is not always good. It depends on the situation. He knows this too. His muscles are sometimes faster than his brain. He can be stubborn and impulsive. Marion is the opposite. She is diplomatic. The Mayor said she has to be, because she works in human resources. Perhaps one day they should change jobs: she drives the lorry and he works in HR.

Fabrice rejected this immediately.

No, thank you.

Human resources is not for him.

Difficult things give him more energy than easy things because difficult things are a challenge. A difficult thing asks for more energy, more investment, more muscle, more brain. But then the feedback is also energy. When he brings more energy, he gets more energy back. Easy things are normal. Difficult things return something stronger.

He is tired afterwards, yes. But it is good.

Finally, we asked what the 100 kilometres showed him at 59.

It showed him that it is possible.

He made 100 kilometres. Now he wants to make it in less time. His next goal is under 24 hours. The current benchmark he knows is 18 hours and 25 minutes, but that man is 30 years younger than him. So for now, 24 hours is the goal.

After that, who knows?

Maybe 120 kilometres. Maybe something else. He has a small problem with his knee. He hopes to lose many kilos. And why not a little triathlon one day? Not an Ironman. Not even half an Ironman for now, because that would mean 90 kilometres of cycling, swimming, and a half marathon. But perhaps a little triathlon.

Maybe when he is 70.

The Mayor told him he should speak with Ralf. Ralf’s wife is training for a half Ironman, and she is 54. Fabrice replied that he is 59 and has a lot of kilos. The Mayor said kilos come and go out the window. Fabrice said the window is closed and the kilos are still there.

So now we have another task.

Open the window.

By the end, we understood that energy for Fabrice is not one thing.

It is not only coffee, though coffee is essential.

It is not only music, though AC/DC clearly helps.

It is not only silence, though silence gives him peace.

It is not only walking, though walking helps him think.

It is not only nature, though the forest relaxes him.

It is not only stubbornness, though stubbornness carried him through the low point between 50 and 60 kilometres.

It is also fruit trees, schnaps, mirabelles, cherries, Marion, serious fun, speaking English, childhood freedom, the road, the body, the mind, and the strange decision to keep going when stopping would be easier.

We learned that energy is not always comfort.

Sometimes energy is coffee after a hated alarm clock.

Sometimes it is silence before AC/DC.

Sometimes it is picking cherries after a long day.

Sometimes it is a steep path that slows the thoughts down.

Sometimes it is the positive tiredness after honest work.

Sometimes it is a pair of angry feet saying one terrible word in three languages.

And sometimes it is a man of 59, standing beyond 100 kilometres, already thinking about how to do it better next time.