Parcival on tour: Joined the 47th Batavierenrace from Nijmegen to Enschede
Written by Evgenia Selivanova
Batavierenrace is the largest relay race in the number of runners, covering the distance of 175 km. Preparation for Batavierenrace 2019 started many weeks before the actual race. It is reasonably obvious considering the amount of work, which supposed to be done before the actual race day.
More than 8 500 individual students and 350 teams participated in the competition. Each team consists of 24 participants, both female and male. The 47th edition of the race took place on Saturday, the 11th of May, however, Tilburg university team started the race weekend a bit earlier. For the reason that first team members start running at 22.30, we left Tilburg already on Friday afternoon. Some members of the team went directly to Nijmegen, where runners from the night shift start running, and some runners went to Enschede, where morning and afternoon shift were based. I was in the morning shift and stayed in the camping in Enschede. The camping was located on the territories of the University of Twente and occupied a large amount of space. I never expected to see so many runners camping in one place. Once you look up front, you hardly see where all the tents end.
In the evening we went to have dinner at a Greek restaurant and have been properly carb loaded to have enough energy to start the 24-hour relay race. Trying to get enough sleep before the next day, we went to bed early. The next day at 4 a.m. we have been already awake and getting ready to go to the buses, which supposed to take us to the start point. At the start point, we met other team members from the night shift, who shared their experience with us. Surprisingly, they looked very fresh after not sleeping the whole night, and I really admired these strong runners!
The first runner from the morning shift started running at around 7 a.m. We were travelling in a van between intermediate points and I should notice that transition was very well organized. I was waiting for my turn to run but at the same time was a bit nervous. A great amount of support was provided by the cyclists who accompanied the runners. It was really helpful and unite the whole team, no matter whether you are running, cycling or driving.
The race went very well for us! We took the 27th place out of 350 teams with a total time of 13:43:40h. One of the most memorable parts was to cheer for your team on the finish point, which took place on the university athletic track.
After the race all the runners went to a huge party to celebrate the end of the Bata race 2019!
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