She will walk until she can no longer continue, says Quinty Ridderhof, a sports teacher in Eindhoven. Together with her colleagues from the Summa Sport college, she will participate this weekend in the Roparun, an annual relay that raises money for people with cancer. “It will be 550 kilometers long, but I’m ready.”
It is the 31st edition of the Roparun, which will also be run entirely in the Netherlands this year because of corona. Spread over the day, more than two hundred teams, with a total of more than five thousand participants, will start their journey of about 550 kilometers in Enschede towards the Coolsingel in Rotterdam.
“Would I rather have been lying on the couch in jeans today? No way! Not at all.”
The ‘Summate team’ is there relatively early on Saturday and starts at half past three in the afternoon. The team consists of teachers and four former students of the Eindhoven Summa Sport college. Quinty is one of them. Although much awaits her, she is very excited about the arduous journey that awaits her.
“Would I rather have been lying on the couch in jeans today? No way! Not at all. I think sports are super fun and it’s mega cool to participate. The closer the start comes the more fun I start to like it .” The Summa Sport team consists of eight runners and four cyclists.
Yes, cyclists. “They cycle continuously. That is for the safety of the runners because the relay continues non-stop, even in the dark,” explains Quinty. There are even more measures to keep it going longer and safer. “We have two teams. They alternate every six hours. When one team rests, the other team starts running. And that for 550 kilometers, without breaks.”
“There will undoubtedly be setbacks. You can hardly recover fully.”
To keep it bearable, the runners also alternate individually. “A van is driving along. After one and a half kilometers the runners then tap the next runner in the van. And so we do it for almost 60 kilometers, after which a van comes with the other team that has been able to rest.”
It will be tough, that’s for sure, but Quinty is confident. “There will undoubtedly be setbacks. You can hardly recover completely because you always have to turn on one and a half kilometers. You are also not allowed to deploy someone extra for a while: if someone drops out, so be it. The rest must then be open longer. The rules are strict, but we are well prepared,” says the teacher.
All teams will arrive in Rotterdam on Monday between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. If all goes well, the people from Brabant will cross the finish line in Rotterdam at half past four. But first there is another special moment: the run through Eindhoven. After all, the relay goes through half the country.
“People can certainly come by on Sunday in Eindhoven. That would be great fun!”
Quinty and her team from Summa Sport hope to be in Eindhoven around three o’clock on Sunday. “We will not pass my school on the Vijfkamplaan, but the school is our resting place. People can certainly come by there tomorrow. We will be there from two to five. That would be great fun,” concludes Quinty.
Since the first Roparun in 1992, approximately 90 million euros have been raised. In 2019, 340 teams jointly raised a record amount of 5.6 million euros.