Last year Tom started his physiotherapist office MOVERE in Kortessem together with his brother and 3 other partners. Today they opened 3 more offices to make their service available to more athletes. Marathon runners and triathletes frequently rely on his gait analysis and treatments for improved running techniques.
Growing up, Tom played a lot of soccer and was always a sporty guy. When our social activities halted due to an inconvenient virus two years ago, so did his ability to play soccer in his club. After a friend dared him to run the Brussels 20km run, he rekindled his love for running. The Antwerp 10 miles and a half marathon in Italy followed quickly.
“ When the marathon in Brussels went better than expected, I started training and quickly noticed an increase in my performance. Due to the workload in my office, I don’t have much time to participate in team sports with fixed training schedules, running you can do anytime and anywhere."
Running the Mont Ventoux is obviously not a walk in the park and even experienced runners might run into trouble when they underestimate this challenge. To prepare for his attempt, Tom ran 70 km a week distributed over 6 days. He sought out some hills in the neighborhood to get used to the continues altitude gain.
The first day Tom attempted his run, it was 41°C. After a couple of Km’s, he realized it is irresponsible to run in this kind of weather and will probably lead to a DNF. The next day he started his run at 5:30 AM to be able to run in acceptable weather conditions.
The first 3,5 Km went great! He started his run from the hotel to the Ventoux to warm up and felt energized and ready. After 30 minutes from the start of the climb, he noticed that he needed to refuel. He took half a package of Pure·E and drank some water. He repeated this process every half hour.
“It’s really hard to find a good gel that is easy to digest and provides enough energy. You have to consume 2-3 gels to fuel you for the next hour of running. They left me burned out after a couple of minutes and made my stomach upset. I often found myself looking for the least bad product instead of a product that helped my performance… until I tried Pure·E. I felt a constant energy boost throughout my run, without the sugar rushes or ‘hitting the runners wall’. My stomach didn’t complain and the day after my run I noticed my muscles didn’t ache as much as when I went in overdrive with other products. It feels more like food instead of a chemically composed gel, I really like it.”
Tom completed the climb in an exceptional time of 2:47:27 after running a total of 24,31 km and 1.586 meters difference in altitude, all with the help of 3 pouches of Pure·E.
If you like to get Tom’s professional advice or you require physiological therapy, you can find more information on his website https://moverekortessem.be and his social media: @groepspraktijkmovere
