DANIËL MULDER

Football was the constant for most of my life. I played for over twelve years, and the structure and the team became something I built my identity around without really questioning it. When I stopped in 2024, I didn't have a plan for what would replace it. Running wasn't really a decision so much as something I fell into, in the space that football left behind. What surprised me was how different it felt. No team to rely on, no coach calling the shots, just me and whatever pace I could hold that day. It was uncomfortable at first, but it slowly became the thing I appreciated most. Every run was mine from start to finish.

By the end of 2025 I joined AV PEC, partly for the community I'd lost when I stopped playing football, and partly to push myself further than I could alone. Training with a group again brought back something I didn't realize I'd missed. Right now my focus is on the classic road distances: 5K, 10K, half marathon and marathon. What drives me most is sharpening my times on each of them, chasing small margins through consistent training. I've also come to appreciate the hybrid side of it, splitting my week between running and strength training. The two feed into each other more than I expected, and neither feels complete without the other.

Alongside training I'm studying Business Administration, balancing lectures and assignments with getting the miles in. The discipline required for one tends to spill into the other. I'm still early in this, but the same thing that pulled me into football as a kid is what keeps me coming back to running: showing up, putting in the work, and slowly becoming someone I wasn't before.