Batavierenrace: racing through the dark

Sometimes a marathon isn’t enough. On Saturday 23rd April, 15 runners from the Imperial College Cross Country and Athletics Club romped home to fourth place in the Batavierenrace. With 348 teams covering 172km through Holland and Germany, the race demanded high levels of speed, endurance, strategy, and tolerance to Dutch rave culture from the teams. Finishing this strongly in the world’s biggest relay race represents one of the club’s finest collective achievements in recent years.

The Batavierenrace kicked off at 12.45am, and was divided into four stages: Night, Morning, Afternoon and Finale. Athletes were paired up and assigned to a set of two legs, with one running and the other taking on cycling duties, before arriving at the end of the first leg and swapping over. The pairs would attempt to finish together at the checkpoint, handing over to two more athletes, who would vest and saddle up before heading into the Dutch countryside.

The surrealism of plunging head first into the inky blackness was not lost on the night team. Bicycle headlamps and minibuses that twinkled in the distance were the sole sources of light for the majority of the route, and techno music blared from every available output within the Dutch border. Leanne Lyons was the star of the evening, putting in a storming first leg to secure the overall lead, running 3.6km in 14:08. From then on, it was a fight to stay afloat. As we crossed in and out of Germany, a number of chaotic changeovers and misdirection from a marshal meant that the team found themselves down in 28th position by the end of the night stage, a rapid fourth-fastest Leg 8 from Anna Lawson the remaining highlight of an otherwise difficult night for the team.

The sun rose, the techno grew louder, the trailing minibuses regrouped and the morning team was loaded. Our athletes responded well to the sunlight, with Matt Douthwaite, Anna Lawson, Chris Thomas, Maddie Whybrow, Michael Crone and Alwyn Elliott putting in top-10 performances in their legs to drag Imperial up to eighth position in the standings. Dutch athletes, weakened from a night of heavy raving, brass music and an admirable refusal to sleep, were left in our wake as Michael won his 7.6km leg in an eye watering 26:56 minutes. Fatigue and merciless amounts of Basshunter began to take their toll on the teams, with minibuses seen driving off in different directions and Imperial losing time over a botched changeover. The ability to maintain composure and execute our strategy and logistics grew in importance, with Matt and Alwyn holding on masterfully in cramped conditions and without sleep to ensure the team was always on track. Without this aspect of our game, we would have finished nowhere near the front of the pack.

Fatigue and merciless amounts of Basshunter began to take their toll

The afternoon team, by this time rendered half-deaf by Avicii, continued our ascent to the giddy heights of fifth on the leaderboard. Chris Thomas and Matt Douthwaite ignored the changing weather conditions to deliver first and third places respectively, with Susanna Tabor and Alwyn Elliot handing over strongly to Alex Warnakulasuriya and Leanne Lyons, who powered into the rapturous crowds of Enschede with a pair of ninth places between them. The team had done their job and set the stage for a barnstorming evening finale, with fourth place the objective.

Enter Nuria Devos. Our diminutive Spanish exchange student was born for the weekend of no sleep, high voltage thunder-trance that crushed a number of her British teammates. The gun sounded and Nuria was released from her cage, eyes lit, teeth bared, an inextinguishable fire that tore across the Dutch cobbles to 12th place. Michael Crone followed in typically electrifying fashion, escaping the furious beats of Enschede at breathtaking pace to arrive at the University of Twente in fourth place against fearsome opposition. At the death, it was Michael’s leg that earned Imperial fourth place in the Batavierenrace.

With the exception of the few who had participated in this race two years ago, no athlete could have anticipated the physical and mental mill we were put through this weekend. No runner could have practised racing through what was for one night the world’s biggest nightclub. Yet it was the closeness of this team, and their resolute spirit, that carried the runners, bikes and buses towards near-victory at the Batavierenrace. Every member played their part, every runner ran as hard as they could through unfamiliar and uncompromising conditions, and everyone who took part will hold this race up as a highlight of their athletic careers and time at Imperial College. The Batavierenrace is to be feared, respected, and ultimately conquered, and no amount of electro-musical torment from the Dutch could prevent us from achieving our goal.