Asia Reducha of team Snijpunt shows character during NN Business Relay Marathon Rotterdam

Our team already registered for the NN Rotterdam Marathon in December 2017. No, not for the individual 42km. They decided to go for a full marathon of 42k divided over 4 people. It did not take long to form a team with Danny, Ronald, Mark and Marco. Obviously, there was some training to do, and so schedules were exchanged.

Unfortunately, Ronald had to drop out one month before the event. But there was Asia. Willing to take Ronald’s place. Untrained.

When raffling the starting positions, Asia opted for the shortest distance of 8.5 km due to her very short preparation period. The remaining distances of 9, 12 and 12.5 km were raffled among the rest of the team.

Danny had the pleasure to start at 10:20 am on this beautiful Sunday morning. Despite a party the night before, he had a great split time. The relay ribbon was passed on to Mark to cover a 12 km stretch. After Mark managed to tighten up the expected arrival time on the Coolsingel, the ribbon was handed over to Asia. She started her 8.5 km-planned distance. So far so good!

At change point 3, Marco was ready to complete the final 12.5 km to the finish. The change zone was confusing and unclear. Not all relay participants saw or could reach the zone. Even despite all volunteers who were doing their utmost to keep the zone visible and accessible.

A few minutes after the scheduled split time, there was still no trace of Asia. Fortunately, there was an app available in which all participants could be found. Soon we saw that Asia had already passed the change point. Short consultation and rapid improvisation led to the idea that Marco would run after Asia to take over the relay shift when he caught up with her.

You can imagine, with tens of thousands of participants it was very difficult to find each other. Marco did not find Asia and decided to continue to run towards the finish. He was clocked after an unofficial time of about 3 hours and 40 minutes. 

But where was Asia?
After a lot of phone calls, we finally found her. Asia turned out to still be in the race. She had already finished 13 km. Mind you: almost untrained, and assuming she would cover 8.5 km!

After Danny advised her to leave the race and walk back to the assembly point, she disconnected. Later she appeared to have covered the entire distance to the finish! Of course, her teammates were extremely proud (and surprised) that Asia just ran a HALF MARATHON of 21 km to get the medals for the entire team!

What a team spirit, endurance, perseverance and above all character! We are proud to call people like Asia our team members. Valuable assets for our company and of course a wonderful story about our first participation in a sporting event.