With 50% of your colleagues at the start!

Most people might think of an international software provider as a boring office building with lots of laptops and IT nerds. This certainly is not the case with Planon. At Planon we compete with the best in the world when it comes to IWMS software. We're also growing so fast that this year we're going to open our new building, which will be connected to the existing building by an energy-neutral greenhouse and, not unimportantly, we'll also get our own gym. In addition, we will also go on a skiing holiday together at the expense of the business, we love a party every now and then and this year we will crawl through the mud on the Berendonck in Nijmegen for the 4th time together.

The Strong Viking Water Edition has become a true Planon tradition in which everyone participates, including management and director. Nobody is feeling too good to work him or herself in sweat during training and get dirty in the mud. In fact, our director is the one who registers himself as the first participant every year and is at the top of the list of participants. He still insists that this is not voluntary and that I force him to, but let’s say the truth lies somewhere in the middle. And don't underestimate him. He may call himself an "old" man with the age of 61, but at the start he’s the first to get over the Walhalla wall, crawls through the mud with enthusiasm and if you don't pay attention he'll run past you between the obstacles.

To prepare ourselves, we start about three months before the run with joint training sessions. These are not ‘feel free to visit’ runs that we agree on from time to time, but it is serious business. Every afternoon after working hours there are two slots of an hour for which you can register, and it is mandatory to attend a minimum number of training sessions before the event. After all, we want to keep the chance of injuries as small as possible and everyone should be able to participate as well. In these trainings we work towards the Strong Viking, in groups of 15-20 colleagues under the guidance of hired trainers. And about three weeks before the run we have a joint training with everyone who has registered, this is the rehearsal of the real deal.

The best thing about this is that we are working together for three months and for once it's not about software or customers. Colleagues who normally never speak to each other get to know each other and have a lot of fun together. Nothing is obligated, everything is allowed and everyone can participate at their own level. During our first edition, a colleague who hadn't competed in sports for five years asked if I thought he would be able to join, because he thought it would be fun. When I asked him why he doubted himself I immediately received his registration. There was no real answer to that question. He was not the only one without a lot of sporting experience and those colleagues are now the fitter employees of the office who still come to the gym every week. There is even one colleague who got so excited that he is now fit enough to run a 100km trail run with me!

How did it became such a great success? We competed for the first time in 2017. I remember sending the mail asking who wanted to join this challenge. At that time, I thought it would be great if we could gather a group of 20 colleagues who were crazy enough to participate. But nothing could be further from the truth. My mailbox exploded that week and within a week I received 65 registrations. After the many training sessions that year we were all at the Berendonck, about to enter the start wave. Although no one will ever admit this, secretly it was all quite thrilling. There was some hope that the gigantic wall would fall over at the start. But unfortunately, they don't do that at Strong Viking. The run is a thing you need to do together as a team and that starts by helping each other to conquer the first obstacle. It's either go over the wall or go home.