Je kunt nooit een oceaan oversteken, als je niet het lef hebt om de kust uit het zicht te verliezen.*
Johannes Cornelis Maria “Hans” Koeleman (born 5 October 1957) is a retired Dutch middle- and long-distance runner. He competed in the steeplechase at the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics, but failed to reach the finals. Hans won a medal at every national steeplechase championship between 1977 and 1988.
Koeleman was a six-time All-American for the Clemson Tigers track and field team in the mile run, 3000 meters flat, and 3000 meter steeplechase.
When did you start running and why?
1957. I got bored and tired of losing soccer matches because our striker rolled into the changing room straight from the pub. Also, I realized that – if I ever would get anywhere – I shouldn’t rely too much, if at all, on others.
Toughest opponent and why?
Henry Marsh. He was invisible throughout the race, making you believe that this time you might actually beat him. then from out of nowhere he zipped by you. I got close a few times though…
Most memorable run?
There are two: the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics 3000 meter steeple chase, first round heat. They took six to the semis, I finished a comfortable 4th, cruising in front of 100,000 spectators. Also, the 1988 Hengelo meet. This was my last chance to qualify for the Seoul Games. The Dutch qualifying standard was 8:21:00. Stadium went berserk on my final lap. I won in 8:20;45.
Biggest disappointment?
Not making the final in 1988. I missed out by ONE place, a little over a second. Pissed me off for months.
What’s it like to win your national championships a dozen in a row?
I was so far ahead of any other steeplechaser; these nationals were business as usual and a nice training run. I didn’t win twice: once right after a foot injury and I was more or less limping across the track. The other I decided top forego the steeple and run the 5000. I finished third, I believe.
What would you do differently if you could do it again?
Nothing. It worked, didn’t it? Making two Olympics is a feat for a runner like me. But, if forced to think of something: more milers, more hills, more speed, more speed, more speed…
Favorite philosopher? Quote?
Ralph Waldo Emerson: To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
Special song of the era?
“This is it” by Kenny Loggins.
Favorite comedian?
Richard Pryor.
What was your ‘best stretch of running’? And so why do you think you hit that level at that time?
1984, 1985, 1988. The Olympics brought that out in me. Not a time to fool around, a time to pay attention to every detail. A time to kill yourself in practice you don’t get killed on raceday. 1985 I ran several national records, probably because I was so relaxed and confident after making the LA Games.
What was your edge?
Mid-race acceleration. One of my proudest moments as an athlete: have David Coleman, BBC’s most renowned track and field commentator mention my name halfway through the 1985 Nice meet. “Koeleman takes the lead, the tall Dutchman, he’s had enough.” The one time I almost beat Henry Marsh was in Hengelo 1987 when I ran a final kilometer in 2:36.
What supplementary exercises did you do?
Lots of hard core stability, circuit training. Daily, leading up to the 1988 Games.
What was your toughest injury and how did you deal with it?
A tendon issue once. I had to lay off running for a month and it healed by itself. But, never was injured for any long period though.
Of course, any thoughts about the sport, then and/or now are welcomed.
I get tired of people saying track and field ‘needs saving’. It’s alive, it is filling stadiums (well in Europe and at every European and World championships and Olympic Games.
Also interested in your knowledge of/thoughts about knee replacements.
If you put springs in the replacements, it may actually make you run faster and longer. This is a loophole in the World Athletics regulations. So, by all means, go for it.
This may be of interest for the story as well. My most memorable workout.
Early spring 1984, April, blazing hot afternoon. Running up the hill out of town (Clemson) en route Big woods, a jungle filled with kudzu, snakes, spiders and lots of hills. Did 15×300 up a long gradual hill, trotting back down, turn around, back up again. Had a little transistor radio in those days that we carried with us open long runs or some workouts, tuned to a local station. Remember parking that little radio against a tree while I was doing the workout. Must have been 90F, near 100% humidity, as happens some days there. All by myself, sweat pouring off of me, with a sounds of the jungle and Lynyrd Skynyrd blaring out of that little radio floating towards me as I ambled downhill, ready for another uphill. Felt utterly indestructible that day and envisioned myself running in LA already.
Did you ever do the one-hour run? What about marathons?
Not a one-hour run for real. No way. Anything longish was purely fun and way after my track career ended. Did run 30+ slow marathons and 6x the Comrades Marathon. That’s 88 kilometers or about 55 miles.
You are making my knees hurt.
I did the Comrades because while in the US so many South Africans were telling me about this race. I thought it was insane, running a double marathon and more. But once I ran my first marathon, NYC in 1998, basically untrained in 4:04, I realised that ‘running fast up front’ was a thing of the past for me and that ‘running slow in the back of the back’ was a more exciting thing to do. I ran the Comrades in 2000 and totally fell in love with the race. 20,000 mediocre distance runners, of all colors and creeds, together battling the heat and hills and the 12-hour cut-off and the fatigue and the misery, truly creates a human bond. Beautiful…
Well, I was mediocre enough, but, then as now, I eschew misery.
Just how did you end up at Clemson? Certainly, Northern Arizona would have been a wiser choice.
Back in 1977, I had had offers from Oregon State and the University of Idaho. Their coaches were traveling to meets in Europe and saw me and talked to me. For some reason I cannot remember I never responded. This is weird because I had dreamed of going to USA since a kid. I had even figured out where I would live: Virginia, because it sounded fancy. The town I pic led, after cooing at the atlas, was Roanoke. Yes, Roanoke, VA.
Anyway, in the fall of 1979 I was traveling to meets in Czechoslovakia with a Dutch friend, a high jumper, who had been in the US since 1979. He went to school at New Mexico Junior College, a two-year school. He wanted to transfer to a four-year Division 1 school. His coach there – Larry Heidenbrecht, remember him? – advised his to consider three schools, in Tucson, Boulder and Clemson. He reckoned Clemson being the warmest so he chose that one. He asked me if I wanted to go with him. I said, ‘hell yeah.’ The next week, the school called and on January 2, 1980 I was on a plane. The rest is history. So, Clemson, South Carolina, actually not too far from Roanoke which goes to show that stupid and funny and childish dreams WILL come true.
Clemson. Loved that place, still do. They inducted (is that the word?) me into the Clemson University Athletic Hall of Fame back in 1995. At the Esso Club and at Nick’s Bar I can still buy beer on a tab that somehow always vanishes.
Right now, I run strictly for fun. In fact, wear the old Allegheny Run for Fun tee all the time. No more pain, or at least not prolonged nor with the intention to have this pain make me better. I am a slow dawg, period. Enjoy running and chatting at the back of the pack…., or, better, completely solo on the beach without shoes… I can run forever, hours after hours…
An Original Gangster Of Running….
Running on the edge of the world
from Linda van den Dobbelsteen for de Brug. July 21, 2017
Hans Koeleman is a two-time Olympian, runner, and writer. Among other things. He’s currently working on a theater tour with [psychiatrist] Bram Bakker and [author] Abdelkader Benali. What do they have in common? Running. Koeleman worked for Nike for seventeen years [European Running brand manager at one point] and remains inspired. And just as that company once philosophized: there is no finish line, so it is for Hans. “It’s never finished.”
[2025 interjection. “The theater tour I did with two other runners who wrote novels – a psychiatrist and a true and award-winning novelist. It was a three-part show where each one of us did a 30’ one-man show. My piece was a reenactment of the call room at the Los Angeles Olympics. Full of stories, bullshit and made-up tales, passion and humor all in one. Crowds loved it. We did it for two seasons, about 30 shows in total and filled up 250-seat theaters easily, usually with folks from the local running community. Best compliment: ’Tonight I sat through a session of remarkable storytelling craftsmanship.’” Must be noted. Hans wrote two bestsellers: “The Blue Hour” and “Olympians,”]
Dark Place: “I organize a recurring running weekend on Terschelling: Dark Sky Running Camp, a kind of mini-training camp. In the middle of the night, at the darkest place in the Netherlands, Dark Sky Park. It’s a long weekend of eating, drinking, chilling, storytelling, and running. One long one, an hour and a half, and another very long one: three to four hours. There’s no artificial light whatsoever. Imagine: a godforsaken beach, only a moon, on the edge of the world. Yes, people can register for it.”
Magic: I love running at night. Because of the silence, the magic. You see things completely differently. It’s a deep source of relaxation and creativity, turning the world upside down. Running at night turns the world into a different universe. Someone on Terschelling said: I think this is what it looks like on the moon. It’s an adventure, that’s what it is. Something happens in your mind, and physically as well.
Amsterdam: “My brother Cor moved here to IJburg; he was one of the pioneers. During a visit, I saw that wooden Piet Hein Eekhuis and the campfires, and I immediately fell in love. IJburg is a place for the modern man. Just look how beautiful it is here.” Hans gazes out over the water, towards the Diemervijfhoek and Pampus. “Amsterdam is a brilliant city anyway. You can’t walk down the same street here and not discover something new. You always see something new.”
Pffff: There’s a noise in the background; a group of people are beating drums in the beach bar. “Team building, pfff. A workshop, I think. This is pretty boring. If you ask them in a week: are you going to do something different? They’ll say: no. You really have to experience something special together, like walking through the night, something unique that you can’t explain to anyone else. That’s how you change something. And you build a bond for life.”
Personal bests
ARRS, the Association of Road Racing Statisticians, does God’s own work without reward, but occasionally there might be an oversight.
Especially for a steeplechase champion. OT 8:18.02 steeple in Budapest, Hungary. 6 August 1985.
OT 1500m 3:42.97. Malmo, Sweden. 2 August 1981. That translates to a sub-four mile, doesn’t it? 3:59.99 at the most.
Performances
Almost forgot to mention, Hans did not let that NCAA education go to waste entirely. He founded Mystical Miles, a literary running magazine in the Netherlands, where my own work has appeared. In Dutch. I did figure out one word – hardloper. Which seems more apt of my own experience than ‘runner.’
Turns out there’s a translator button on this machine. Like alchemy, the Dutch becomes English. https://mysticalmiles.nl/verhalen/
Mystical Miles: a magazine for runners who prefer a beer to a protein shake after a run. Sweat stinging your eyes. A path that turns out to be no path at all. Running in pitch darkness. Surpassing yourself, not by running faster, but by experiencing adventures you previously feared. Running has many facets. With Mystical Miles, we search for untold stories and breathtakingly beautiful photos. Will you join us on this adventure?
https://mysticalmiles.nl/talk-softly-run-hard
*Je kunt nooit een oceaan oversteken, als je niet het lef hebt om de kust uit het zicht te verliezen.
“You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”