12 Steden Plog (12 City Plog)
My first truly epic adventure as a professional plogger
"Go BIG Paul, GO BIG!"
That is the voice in my head. It is time to listen to it
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The short version
Next May - for the ENTIRE month - I am going to run and plog around the entire Netherlands!
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1300 KM
31 MARATHONS
12 CITIES
1 MONTH
1 BANANA SUIT
In each city, I will organise a fun group cleanup.
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But let's look at it in detail now..
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The spark of an idea
When I plan an adventure I ask myself "How can I make it the toughest yet?"
This is a good example of that; I could simply get on a train and do a cleanup in each of the 12 cities. Job done!
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But I need to push myself.
I want people to see that I put my heart, soul and every molecule of my body on the line for it. To inspire by doing something truly astounding.
For myself, I need to come up with something that really will push me to the limits. I need to start it unsure and unconfident that I can do it.​​
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"If I can do something as ridiculously tough as this, then hopefully it can inspire people to bend down and pick up a single piece of trash"
That's all I want. I don't want you to give money to a charity or do the same as me. Heck no!, I just want you to pick up a piece of trash next time you step out the door and think about how it makes you feel.​​
​Originally my idea was to run the entire border of the Netherlands. It was an idea I had had for a couple of years. But then a friend told me about a mountain biker who had done this 12-city tour, and the spark ignited. "Wow!", I thought, "What a great idea!" - it meant I would visit real cities and could arrange events in those places. And of course, one of those capitals is Haarlem, where I live! A perfect start and end to the adventure.
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​Now, here's the problem. It is still months away.
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I also tend to come up with new ideas to make it more epic. A perfect example of this is the flag I used with the canuary dress. That was an idea I had after I started on the dress; and that flag really made the outfit epic!
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For this adventure, I have already added a banana suit, and now I want to try and figure out if I can get funding for a documentary crew to film me (for me, I think this is worthy of one of those amazing YouTube films that gets shown at festivals!!)
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So I am kinda scared what layers I will add to the challenge before I even reach the start line!​​
The plan in detail
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The Netherlands is made up of 12 principalities and each principality has a capital city.
I want to plog my way to and from each one.
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I will start at the stadhouse (city hall) of each city and then just go and run to the next one.
That could be 150km away! So I will break each down into a marathon.
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In total it will be as a minimum, a marathon each day, for an entire month.
(31 x 42 = 1300km)
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On the map you can see the order of the cities I will run to. I will start in my home city of Haarlem and work my way down to Maastricht, before heading north to Groningen and then back to Haarlem.
I will also visit Amsterdam as an extra.. just because it would be fun to do!
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In each of the 12 cities I will organise a cleanup event.
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Self-supported
The biggest challenge is actually going to be that I want to do it self-supported (without help). So I need to take all my gear with me. To make this possible I will get a beach trolley. This will be all my gear as well as bags hanging on the side for the trash I collect - I will be continuously plogging.
In the trolley will be a tent - I am hoping that I can convince hotels to put me up for the night for free, but if not, I will just pitch my tent and sleep.
All weather
Yep, it tends to rain here. I need to accept that many days I will just be soaked.
Some good waterproof bags are a must haha
Join in? ABSOLUTELY!
I will be sharing my route as well as having a live tracker. I am hoping that it is going to be a Forest Gump type adventure; maybe no one at the start with me, but by the end I will have people joining me for sections (or maybe even an entire day!!
Marathon not a Sprint
This is not a race. So don't expect 4hrs marathons. I suspect that each day will take around 10hrs at least. So I will be jogging, but often walking. And always plogging.
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Documentary and Filming​​
Is it my imagination or is this adventure.. documentary worthy? The kinda epic YouTube film you see with 'shown at eco festival' on it?
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My priority is getting enough sponsors to fund my daily plogging (this is really just a part of that and my core business) - but I would love somehow to find additional funding for this to be turned into a proper high-quality documentary. Something worthy of the effort and commitment I have to put into it myself.
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Whatever happens, I will be filming it, but I will never be able to tell the third-person story of it, or get those truly epic b-roll shots that will make it awesome.
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If you are interested in helping me with this, then email me (and especially maybe if you want to help fund it!!!) - my email is below
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Just the first!
I think that if I can pull this off, then I will have made one heck of a start to my vision as a professional plogger.
I want to do something epic each year like this (in 2027 I have the ultimate goal - but that is a surprise)
And each time.. bigger and crazier!
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Any questions? Then just email me or use the contact form