In our Flows summer series, we look for people in logistics with a special passion. Straddle carrier driver Andy Beyers of PSA Belgium completed a half Ironman this summer. In doing so, he raised money for charity during PSA’s annual ‘Moving for Charity’ challenge.
‘Moving for Charity’ is a concept where PSA employees from the EuroMed and Americas regions compete against each other in teams of six for two weeks to move as much as possible. This is measured via popular sports apps such as Strava and Apple Health. The more minutes they exercised during the month of June, the more money this raised for charity. PSA Belgium, together with MPET and ATS, managed to raise some 3,000 euros for the Antwerp City Pirates, a social football project.
Of the ‘Moving for Charity’ participants, some ran, some swam and some cycled, but straddle carrier driver at PSA Belgium’s North Sea terminal Andy Beyers did all three in one day. He took part in a half Ironman on 30 June 2024 in Luxembourg. He covered the entire course in a time of five hours and 30 minutes, half an hour less than the time he had set for himself.
Andy Beyers, who began his career in endurance sports as a marathon runner, said he was most tense for the 1.9-kilometre swim. This is the discipline in which he is least trained and, moreover, he had little experience of swimming in open water. Nevertheless, that part went reasonably well and he covered the distance in 37 minutes. In his strongest discipline, running, he managed to complete the 21 kilometres in 1 hour and 36 minutes.
North Sea Terminal
During ‘Moving for Charity’, Andy Beyers was part of the ‘913 early’ team at the North Sea Terminal, a group of runners and cyclists who finished fourth in the regional challenge with a total of a whopping 10,497.8 minutes or 7.3 days of exercise in a fortnight. “The ‘Moving for Charity’ was a lot of fun,” says Andy Beyers, “because of the competition among colleagues that pushed me to train a whopping 2,277.9 minutes during these two weeks.”
“We have often talked about the challenge at work and are disappointed that we did not finish in the top three in the region,” he says. “One of our colleagues drives 70 kilometres back and forth to work every day, but he was on holiday during the challenge, so he covered a lot less kilometres. Next year, we will definitely compete for prizes again!”
What the next big challenge will be, Andy Beyers does not know yet, but he secretly hopes to participate in a full Ironman in two years’ time. “I want to try to complete a half triathlon first in September 2025 to gain more experience, but this is not in the planning yet,” he says. “If I participate in a full Ironman, I would also like to support a charity at the same time.”
