Negative Split Running Tribe Running as a Family in Antwerp

Where the City Ends and the Tribe Begins

Just beyond the urban sprawl of Antwerp, where the ring road gives way to meadows and tree-lined trails, a group of around thirty runners gathers each month to do something quietly radical. They run together, and they mean it literally. No one gets dropped. If the pace overwhelms someone, the group slows. If someone needs to walk, everyone walks. The Negative Split Running Tribe was built on that single, uncompromising principle, and it shapes everything about the way this crew moves through the green suburban belt surrounding one of Belgium's most storied port cities. The crew came together in September 2018, founded by two people with complementary instincts about what running could mean. Michiel is the crew's facilitator and public voice, the person who plans the routes, organises the events, and shows up consistently to hold the group together. Seba brings a different kind of authority to the project: a depth of experience as an ultra-runner that allows him to coach members who are pushing their own limits in long-distance events. Together they make a natural pair, one building the structure, the other providing the wisdom that makes hard training feel purposeful. That balance has kept the crew cohesive through its first years and well into the present.

A Word That Shapes a Community

The crew's name is not just a running term. A negative split, for those unfamiliar, describes a race strategy in which a runner completes the second half of a course faster than the first. It rewards patience, discipline, and the willingness to trust the process rather than burn out early. As a philosophy for a running crew, it translates into something generous and grounded: start together, build slowly, finish stronger than you started. The Negative Split Running Tribe chose that name deliberately, and it shows in how they operate. The crew's own definition of "tribe" adds another layer of meaning. They describe a tribe as a division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, united by a common culture. Their common culture is running. Their bond is the shared experience of pushing through a long trail on a grey Belgian morning, of stopping to take in a view across a field, of cheering each other through a competitive race. These are not metaphors. For the people who show up month after month, they are the actual substance of belonging.

Trails Through the Green Belt

Antwerp is not the first city that comes to mind when people think about trail running in Belgium. The Ardennes, with its rolling hills and dense forests, tends to draw that attention. But the suburban ring around Antwerp has its own understated beauty: long meadows, quiet woodland paths, open farmland interrupted by the occasional canal. The Negative Split Running Tribe runs through all of it. Michiel scouts and draws the routes himself, varying the terrain and the location so that members are constantly encountering new stretches of the landscape they call home. This approach keeps the experience from becoming routine. A crew that runs the same loop in the same park every week can start to feel mechanical. The Negative Split Running Tribe deliberately resists that. Each outing brings a different slice of the green belt into view, and the changing seasons transform even familiar ground. In autumn, the meadows surrounding the city carry a different quality of light than they do in spring. In winter, the trails are quieter, the pace adjusted to what the ground allows. The environment is treated as part of the experience rather than simply the setting for it.

One Open Run a Month, One Race Together

The crew's regular rhythm is straightforward and easy to follow. Every month includes at least one Open Run, which is accessible to people who want to try the crew before committing, and at least one official competitive race run together as a tribe. That combination of the informal and the structured gives members something for every kind of motivation. Some people come for the companionship and the easy weekend miles. Others are training hard for ultras and need both the community support and the race experience to keep progressing. The monthly race commitment is worth noting because it is relatively unusual. Many urban running crews focus almost entirely on group training runs and social events, treating competition as optional or personal. The Negative Split Running Tribe integrates race participation into the fabric of what they do collectively. Showing up at the start line together, wearing the same kit, running for the same crew is part of how the tribe expresses itself. It gives members a concrete shared goal and a reason to push through the harder weeks of training. It also means the crew regularly encounters new running environments and race communities, which keeps the experience outward-looking.

Small by Design, Strong by Conviction

Around thirty members run with the Negative Split Running Tribe, and that number is not accidental. The founders have been clear that pace and distance shape who joins and who stays. The crew trains with genuine intent. Many members are preparing for ultra-distance events, which means the average run involves significant mileage and sustained effort. That kind of training naturally self-selects for a certain type of runner: committed, patient, willing to suffer a little and then laugh about it afterward. But the small size also enables the culture the crew values most. When a group is thirty people rather than three hundred, it is possible to actually know everyone. The faces at each run are familiar. The conversations are continuous rather than strangers starting from scratch every time. The crew can operate with the warmth and informality of a group of friends who happen to run together, which is, in many ways, exactly what it is. The tribe model is not a branding exercise. It is a description of how the group actually functions: a community with shared values, mutual responsibility, and a genuine interest in each member's progress.

Friendship Dedication Believe

The three words the Negative Split Running Tribe places at the centre of its identity are worth sitting with. Friendship, because without it the runs are just exercise. Dedication, because showing up when conditions are difficult is where real growth happens. Believe, because every ultra-runner knows there are moments on a long course where the only thing keeping you moving is the decision to trust yourself and the people around you. Those words do not describe a programme or a brand. They describe an ethic, a way of relating to running and to each other that the crew has cultivated since September 2018. Michiel and Seba built something that takes running seriously without taking itself too seriously, that holds people to real standards while leaving room for everyone to have their own experience of the trail. The result is a crew that feels, from the outside, like something that took years to develop and, from the inside, like something that was always going to happen. Follow the Negative Split Running Tribe on Instagram to see where the tribe runs next.