It was in the fall of 2012 when I was taking a computer lab in Komeetzaal A at the Radboud University Medical Center. Joyce, whom I didn’t know at the time, was sitting next to me. Because I finished a bit early, I went to look at photos of the last Survival Run. Joyce mentioned it to me, and that’s how we met.

In the spring of 2013, we spoke again about the survival run on the lawn in front of the medical faculty. “Where do you actually train?” That’s when the first idea for the association emerged. We fantasized about how cool this would be, and how great it would be to be able to practice the sport right here in Nijmegen! It wasn’t long after that we agreed to seriously consider it. This resulted in the first meeting in the medical faculty’s study area in September 2013, the start of the new academic year.

Hidde, Joyce’s housemate, joined us, and soon we were in touch with the NSSR. Survival Run? What’s that? Will that work in Nijmegen? Determined that Nijmegen, after Delft and Utrecht, couldn’t afford to be left behind, we organized the first 10 try-out training sessions at the 7-Hills Survival site in Groesbeek. We wanted to demonstrate that a survivalrun association in Nijmegen was definitely worth a try.

The training sessions were a success, and it wasn’t long before we became prospective members of the NSSR. Stan joined us from that moment on, and thus the first board was formed. Hours of meetings at each other’s homes and at Café Moenen, contacting other clubs, providing training, consulting with the USC (now RSC) and the NSSR—it all basically led to us being preoccupied with peripheral matters and sometimes not even getting around to exercising ourselves. The search for a training location also proved quite a challenge. We got pretty far with a small wooded area near a scouting club until the Das&Boom foundation informed us that it might be a badger’s habitat. Unfortunately, this was an insurmountable hurdle, even for survival runners.

One of the first trips with FEL was the Survival Run in Groningen. This was at least a year before the event was officially launched. The day before, we went to explore the run, which was already a survival run in itself. Afterwards, we enjoyed beer and pizza as the perfect preparation for the day after. The FEL clothing line wasn’t available yet. We’d bought FEL yellow boxer shorts at the Grote Markt beforehand, which we wore over our running tights. Many trips followed, where FEL’s presence never went unnoticed, in a playful way.

It was wonderful to see how FEL slowly made a name for itself within the Nijmegen student sports community, with highlights including its official founding on March 19, 2015, its subsequent inauguration as a member of the NSSR on May 27, 2015, and the opening of the FELdje on June 11, 2015. We were once told that it’s difficult to find successors who are as motivated as the founders, and that this is why fledgling associations often struggle to survive. NSSV FEL proves the opposite! It makes me, and I think I speak for the other founders, proud how time and again a newly motivated board and, of course, the members have brought the association to where it is today!

Jurian Rooks