Imperial put in marathon performance to place 15th in Europe’s largest student relay

On Friday 9th May 2014, a team of from the Imperial College Cross Country and Athletics Club set off to the Netherlands to take on Europe’s largest student relay race; de Batavierenrace. Having been invited year on year by Dutch participants of the Imperial’s own Hyde Park Relays, and with some extra enthusiasm generated by new Dutch club members, it was finally decided that we would see what all the fuss was about.

The race consists of 25 stages, beginning at midnight and running 175km crossing towns, countries and borders to finish the following evening before a huge festival style party. The teams are expected to ferry their runners around the course by minibus and bike, requiring a huge amount of organisation, coordination and endurance. Sounds great right? Read on to hear an account of ICXCAC’s representation on the continent.

Arrival – Matt Douthwaite

Obtaining a team of 25 for a race in another country in exam season at Imperial is nigh on impossible, and as a result our team for the race came to a grand total of 13 people. On top of the sleep deprivation, almost everyone would have to run twice. This made it the most ambitious Cross Country trip in many years. Game on.

Getting to the Netherlands was the first challenge of the weekend. The first part of Team Ba(n)ta left in a minibus from Imperial at 10am, only to spend almost 12 hours on the road thanks to the joys of the French/Belgian rush hour. The clock was now ticking for the drivers Alwyn Elliott and Anne Hardijzer, who would be driving enough this weekend as it was, without practicing clutch control in three hour traffic jams. However they survived and regrouped with the car carrying the remainder of the team in the Dutch University of Nijmegen. By now it was 10:30pm with around 2 hours to the international start time. Important race preparations were made including going over the plan again, making sandwiches and kitting out then support bike with multicoloured fairy lights to make it easily distinguishable to tired runners. Finally there was a team huddle. Everyone very aware of how much could go wrong over the next 18 hours, the usual IC war cries were accompanied by a “Don’t forget to have fun…”

The race is split into a number of stages with restarts after each; a night stage, a morning stage, an afternoon stage and the final men’s and women’s race to the finish. So this is how we attempted to split our undermanned team, with some overlap. This meant the day team was now preparing for what we thought would be a good 5 hours sleep on the floor of the university gym, while the night team were warming up for an action packed night of running.

The Night Shift

By Duncan Ingram

A giant relay race spanning 175km is kind of a big deal. But to tackle such a feat in completely foreign territory, with a distinct shortage of participants, is truly something else. Impeccable timing, navigation and athletic determination must all be present if any sort of success is to be achieved. Though to say that Team Imperial got off to a smooth start would be plain wrong.

Consider the atmosphere at midnight. Stupid time to start running, or do anything but sleep, but this is precisely when our first runner, Anne Hardijzer, set off to start the relay’s daunting night segment. Located in the Dutch city of Nijmegen, cheering at the grand start of Batavierenrace is exciting stuff. Being surrounded by bustling crowds of athletes with eurotech blasting from speakers can quickly make you forget how cold it is, but a real nervousness was suddenly kicking in for the night team’s runners: Anne Hardijzer, Johnny Li, Mike Kaye, Duncan Ingram, Milan Mišák and Alissa Kleinnijenhuis. Before heading out in the minibus (our method of transport for dropping off and picking up runners en route), Johnny was preparing to meet Anne with Imperial’s bike in preparation for Stage 2. Importantly, each runner and accompanying cyclist required team-specific bibs to swap at successive relay points… No bib? No race. Now with 15 minutes before Anne’s start, a query arose to the tune of “where’s our cycling vest?” And what a good question that was!

After searching backpacks, scouring the minibus and retracing steps, no bib had appeared, and the thought of our team being disqualified before barely starting the race, let alone finish, was becoming increasingly real. Nevertheless, if you’ve seen the length of this article you’ll know we got round this problem one way or another. In a fleet of desperation, and with precious minutes to go, the bib was found handed in at an information point, meaning that Imperial could hope for success once more! Secure vest to Johnny • …Round up the night team • …Nobody’s died yet • …and away we go.

The driving was terrifying. Tasked with navigating to the next waypoint using ‘crystal clear’ google maps print-outs, we were put under time pressure once again. In theory you just have to drive to the next checkpoint before current runner/cyclist make it there, but forcing a larger-than-life vehicle that had a disliking for 3rd gear round narrow bends seemed more improbable than winning Eurovision. On more than one occasion we experienced near-misses and no-misses with awkwardly placed curbs or traffic using poor lane discipline, though our vehicle always came out unscathed. We quickly caught on to the fact that other minibuses (transporting other teams) knew the Dutch roads better than us, so trying to tail big white vans became the new priority. This was far from foolproof however – one occasion saw us follow a minibus onto a roundabout, only to find that it just kept on going round. After a few dizzy revolutions it was clear they were unfortunately following us too. Thankfully the chaos ended when a third vehicle entered the equation and took a decisive first exit, to which everyone immediately followed.

Despite these shenanigans, the night team kept pulling through stage-by-stage. Darting to the next waypoint to swap racers, while at times incredibly stressful, couldn’t have been more exhilarating. When waiting for team members at the checkpoints themselves the atmosphere was still electric, and thus despite working long enough to see the sun at 6:30am, exhaustion rarely got in the way. So of course it wasn’t all doom and gloom – there were plenty of awesome moments and unexpected highlights that maintained a positive spirit. Like seeing our bike decked out in Christmas lights ride in from the distance, or Milan realising that his run had just taken him into Germany! But as all of us can vouch for, nothing could compare to the satisfaction of finishing your first relay leg; sprinting past bikes and runners in the dark is immensely satisfying stuff.

“All good things come to an end” (said someone, presumably), and so this third of the relay had to reach its sad conclusion. Duncan was left with the Christmas bike in some weird place called Ulft, while the minibus sped off to acquire the keen bunch responsible for the remainder of Batavierenrace. Huge congratulations should be given to the night team for not losing their cool and delivering the goods when it mattered, but particularly to Mike and Anne for additionally driving us round in one piece. For most of us however this was just the start, as many had to prepare for relay legs in the Morning and Afternoon series …ah well, sleep’s overrated anyway.

Night Running by Milan

Just after our previously lost cycling bib was found, Alissa, Duncan, Mike and Milan jumped into the minibus to go to the start of the third leg leaving Anne and Johnny in Nijmegen for the first two legs of the race. Very quickly did we realise that it would not be too easy to find the right place. Not knowing about a printout of driving directions between changeover points and long before coming up with the ‘follow that van!’ strategy we just had to rely mostly on a minimally detailed map of the whole race and Mike’s compass. Well, we got there in the end…

While waiting for Johnny and Anne it became obvious that not only our bike with fairy lights on it looked fancy (which almost everyone commented on when we were running past) but we could also recognise it from a distance giving the runner and cyclist of the next leg more time to get ready. Johnny had a massive sprint finish aided by cheering crowds which he was enjoying so much that he didn’t bother stopping (or even slowing down) once he went through a timing gate at the end of his leg. That left me having to shout and chase after him to make him stop and hand over the bib. After this little incident I could finally set off into the pitch black night. With no-one around it was difficult to see the winding road going through fields at the Dutch/German border. But then Mike on our shining bike caught up and all was good again. Having the biker aim with the front light in front of the runner really made a difference at night. This was the longest (12.5k) leg of the race and I was trying to push hard but still keep some energy for the next two legs. Mike’s encouraging comments and almost constant overtaking of slower runners was really empowering and helped me get through the leg a lot quicker than I expected.

Then it was Mike’s turn to run and Duncan’s to cycle before swapping around. The minibus could therefore skip one changeover point and go straight to the start of leg number 6. It was at this point that we once stopped at a junction as we didn’t quite know where to go. We asked the people in the minibus behind us, but they had no idea either. But a queue of vehicles had built up in the meantime and people in the next minibus along said they knew the way. From then on we often just watched out for minibuses and followed or at least took inspiration from where they were heading. It’s not like there was too much other traffic at 3am anyway.

I was running again this time across the river Rhine and back to the Netherlands. It was slightly uphill for most of the course which wasn’t great but I was still overtaking people so it despite tiredness building up it didn’t feel too bad. Alissa was doing a great job ringing the bike’s bell to get people out of the way and cheering (once even in Dutch by accident). At the end of the leg me and Alissa swapped around and continued to blaze past other teams until handing over to Johnny and Mike. After their leg Mike was running again and I was cycling with him during a short and intense leg finishing in Ulft which marked the end of the night section.

Morning stages 10, 11 - Will Jones

After cheering off Anne at the start and making sure the first changeover went as planned the morning team of Siân, Sophie, Lina and Will along with Matt and Al found a quite spot to get as much shut-eye as possible before an early start the next day. Unfortunately this went out the window as we were woken at 3am with loud club music – only the Dutch… After finding another quite spot and trying to salvage as much sleep as we could we were off at 5:45am to head over to Ulft to meet up with the night team for the morning restart.

After calling the night team to arrange a meeting place with Duncan and the bikes we headed on our way, briefly spotting the team minibus heading in the opposite direction along our journey. After a minor bit of confusion about our destination (“We’re in Ulft but we can’t find the start!”) and consulting a Bata marshal (who asked us “is my English alright” in impeccable English) we found our way to the restart, parked up and got our stuff ready for the coming legs. After meeting up with Duncan we picked up the bike and got the bibs – the blue running vest for me and the red cycling one for Siân. We were told the restart had been delayed, but not by how much. In a brief moment of confusion I spotted another runner from our wave over at the start and ran over thinking we were about to head off. It turned out however that there was still another half an hour to wait, and the others had already left with the car! After running over to tell Siân in the bike waiting area that we’d have to wait for a bit I watched the second wave set off and went for a brief warm-up. Killing time at the start was helped by a Dutch journalist who – seeing the Union Jacks on my cheeks – was sufficiently intrigued to ask me for a quick interview.

Soon after it was time to approach the start line. Our wave contained all the university runners, and being a fast, flat 10k leg I was expecting some fast runners. After a brief wait the countdown in Dutch began and we off – and fast. After approximately two steps I felt my already injured hamstring tighten and then tear – a great start! Only one thing to do about it: time to grit my teeth and take it for the team!

After a few hundred metres past cheering crowds we crossed over a bridge (I found it amusing how much the small incline seemed to affect my fellow Dutch runners) and joined up with the cyclists. The route took us through the streets of Ulft before heading out onto gently curving country roads. Siân cycled alongside; bubbling with enthusiasm as always. After steadily getting through the middle section of the run and counting down the kilometres a short section of muddy trail led into the more built up outskirts of Varsseveld. After crossing a railway line briefly before the crossing barriers began to descend (sucks for whoever was behind me!) it was a quick sprint into the finish with Siân cycling ahead to get ready at the changeover.

After a quick swapping of bibs Siân was off and fast. I cycled up alongside and we were soon overtaking other teams. Despite pain from her knee we continued at top effort and passed 4 teams by the end of the leg, a great result! After passing over to Sophie and Lina to set them up for a fast pair of women’s legs we limped our way over to the car park to meet up with the car with Matt and Duncan. Unfortunately they decided to drive over to the start to pick us up, we missed each other and caused a great deal of confusion. After finally meeting up we jumped into the car and drove over to waypoint 13 where Duncan and I would take over from Sophie and Lina.

_Next week Felix Sport will feature a report from the second half of this event. _

Stay Tuned!