Batavierenrace 2019: Run Synergy, Run!

May 16th, 2019

Georginio Bruinhard & Chiel Tijdink

After weeks, if not months, of ‘preparations’ and waiting, last Friday, it was finally time for one of the most famous events of the year: the Batavierenrace! The Synergy Team was more than ready to conquer the 47th edition of the famous student relay-race, which starts in Nijmegen and goes all the way to Enschede in 25 stages, 175 kilometers in total.

The start of the race was at the Grote Markt in Nijmegen. Wessel had the honour to run the first kilometres for Synergy. Encouraged by some enthusiastic supporters, a short warming-up and a quick beer Wessel had the perfect preparation for his stage. Starting from 22:30, Wessel gave everything he had and after the first stage Synergy was on the 116th place. The night team did their best and when they ended their stages Synergy was on the 210th place. At 6:30 the night team went to Enschede to get their deserved two hours of sleep and to enjoy the rest of the day with a few beers.

Now, it was time for the morning team to run Synergy in the top 200. The morning team had a short night (they gathered in Nijmegen at 4 o’clock), but you couldn’t see this in their results. And at the end of all their stages, Synergy was on the 171th place. Their run ended in Barchem, and they went to Enschede to enjoy some well-deserved beers before they went to the finish to see how the afternoon team performed.

The final team to race for glory was the afternoon team. They were probably also the only ones who had enough hours of sleep beforehand. The afternoon team started in Barchem, not too far from Enschede, to pick up from where the morning team ended. Their tasks were to deal the final blow and put Synergy on top of the list, as well as to shine as bright as possible for the final run to the university campus. The team started off well, but as the sun started to shine, their struggles became harder. Everyone gave their all (some literally) to ensure a spot on the leaderboard we could be proud of. After the last run, the Synergy Team ended on the 170th place out of 370 teams.

Meanwhile, while the runners were running their legs off, there was another crew with the Synergy Team: the tent builders. They were the foundation of our success, enabling us to come home to our sleep-ready tents on campus. To make it even better, they made sure we had a nice chilling spot in the middle of our ring of tents.
As soon as everyone was back on campus, it was time to go to study association Stress, to fill our bellies with food and beers, a lot of beers. When you share a room with four other study associations, all offering a barrel of beer, the party simply cannot fail.

To end the day, we set course to the biggest student party of Europe. There was one more pleasant surprise waiting for us there: the announcement of who won the university competition. This year the honour was for the Radboud/HAN sports team! After that there was only one thing we could do. To test our stamina once more, and party all night long.
The next morning it was time to pack our stuff and leave for Nijmegen again. With that the Batavierenrace ended. A weekend full of fun and nice memories!