The weather report for Saturday afternoon on May 4th, 2019, did not look at all promising: Wind, rain and even snow right down to the lowlands. A forecast that wasn’t met with a great deal of enthusiasm by most of the 15,000 runners waiting to start the largest running competition in Switzerland, the Lucerne City Run. Looking at the skies, the hopes of our BiCA running group getting off to a dry start in the business group category just before 6 pm was fading by the minute.

And sure enough, although the family and school groups managed to finish their runs with relatively dry feet in the afternoon, as soon as it came to our turn to start, the heavens quite literally opened. As the temperature started to plummet, even the most weather-hardy runners felt some frustration at the deluge. But just as soon as the starting signal sounded, it was all forgotten. All we focused on was the running!

A run is no walk in the park

There weren’t as many spectators lining the route through the old town of Lucerne as in previous years – but the nasty weather did nothing to diminish the special atmosphere of this city run. Even though the route was a mere 3.5 km long, it cost us everything we had. It is a fairly short race, but definitely no walk in the park! And, to get a shot at a good ranking, you have to give your all from the first to the last yard!

In a nutshell: We were not only fast – but good. Our ranking was excellent, 16th place out of over 100 company teams. A result all the more astounding considering both our fastest runners from last year were missing. Still, our colorful team, comprising IT students, purchasers, ICT specialists, support personnel and colleagues from production and manufacturing, showed their tenacious attitude by beating the adverse conditions. Every one of our participants can quite honestly be proud of their performance!

As the weather was so bad this time, the After-Run party took place inside the famous Lucerne Culture and Convention Center, the KKL. The mood there was fantastic, and the evening just got longer and longer – so nobody was surprised when we made our decision: Our BiCA team will be back at the starting line for the next city run on April 25th, 2020!