9. Harlingen
All you could see was drift-snow
Listen Henk Gemser: “With Annie, my fiancee at the time, who is now my wife, I had arranged that she would be standing along the route with supplies between Harlingen and Franeker. Annie was an excellent skater. Long-distance champion of Friesland at the time that Atje Keulen-Deelstra was also up and coming. Annie was then even better. At a bridge in Wijnaldum Annie was waiting for me. In a sheltered spot. Right at the last moment she recognised me, because we all looked like icemen. And she says to me – you know, engaged, you’re still very much in love with each other, like young people can be in love – she says to me: “I’ll just go and get your food”. I then thought that she was going to fetch the food in the village, or something like that, and then all of a sudden I had this terribly short-tempered straightforward reaction: “Never mind! I don’t need it anymore!” Followed by a nice couple of swear-words. Straight away I skated away, because I had to keep it up, otherwise I wouldn’t make it. It turned out later that the food had been standing only five metres away. All Annie had to do was turn around, but even that took too long for me. I had to go on.”