Group of Aloha who joined the Ekiden
Written by Jolien
On Saturday 23 March 2024, D.A.V. Kronos organised the NSK Ekiden. In a team of six, you had to run the official marathon distance in relay form. We participated in this race with a large group of Alohans and Alohennen, allowing us to form three fully Aloha teams, each with its own goal.
The marathon was divided into rounds of 2,5 km across campus and the last leg had an extra loop. As a result, every team member ran across the Utrack at least twice. This was super fun, since that’s were the rest of Aloha was. Regardless of which team you belonged to, you got a lot of encouragement because of this. This was great to see and also motivated me enormously during my stage to make that final push.
During the race, we had decided to run the last stage with the Aloha flag. So the flags were quickly taken out of the Aloha hok and practice was done to indicate the flag correctly. In the end, this allowed 4 Alohans and Alohans to cross the finish line with flag and all, including myself. This did give me a kind of ultimate feeling of the finish stage of the batavierenrace.
Despite the sometimes unusual weather conditions, Aloha showed good form and several PRs were also run. The women’s team ”Alohennen” consisting of Hester, Nynke, Liz, Sara, Charlotte and I won first prize! With this, we showed the athletics clubs that we can also run well. In addition, the other women’s team ”niet zo Alohard gaan” also achieved a very nice performance. Indeed, their goal was to finish within the maximum time of 4 hours, and they succeeded this! The last team ”Tri-rex” also consisted of non-students, so they could not compete for medals. Nonetheless, they also set a very good time.
After the race, a large group of us had dinner together and then went on to the party in the Boortoren. In our pyjamas, as it was a pyjama party after all, we were one of the few still able to show off our dancing skills properly on the dance floor and had a very fun evening!
