Thousands of athletes in running shoes, a police escort and in the middle of it all a student who probably spurred on some of the young participants on Instagram or TikTok with his story: When 2,000 joggers took over the streets of the capital on Sunday morning for the country’s largest “community run”, Bob Scholtes was one of the most famous faces who stood out from the crowd. After all, 18,000 people follow him on social media. In May, for example, they watched him cover 275 kilometers in over 40 hours (in one go).
Scholtes is not a natural talent who has had a love for ultramarathons in recent years. “Before I was 16, I didn’t really do much exercise. I was the chubby little guy who eventually became dissatisfied with my body. I wanted a change and decided to take control of it myself.” It was a learning process with rookie mistakes, as he now knows. The before and after videos first show a young man holding his belly fat into the camera – and then the physical transformation over several years up to the washboard stomach.
