FSB team competes in the 2015 Lausanne Marathon

The annual Lausanne Marathon is divided into a full-, a half-, and quarter-marathon (42 km, 21 km and 10 km respectively). The 2015 Marathon took place on 25 October 2015 and numbered over 14,000 participants, 67 of which belonged to a team from EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences (FSB). The Lausanne Marathon is considered one of the most beautiful races in Europe, with outstanding natural surroundings along the route, which runs between Pully and Vevey along the shoreline of the Lavaux vineyards. It ends in front of the fountain at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, the Olympic Capital.

The FSB Running Team, which is the first ever from the faculty, was put together by the initiative of Silvia Scarabelli, a PhD student at the Laboratory of Protein Engineering (EPFL-ISIC). Scarabelli sent out a faculty-wide request for participants, which met with an unexpected enthusiastic response. Sponsoring its now-official running team, the Faculty paid the registration fee for the participants, which included PhD students, postdocs, technical and administrative staff, and professors.

Organized by Scarabelli, the team met for three training sessions before the marathon. The athletic endeavor sparked exceptional collaboration across the Faculty: Thomas Lugrin, PhD student with the Chair of Statistics (EPFL-MATHAA) designed an FSB running team t-shirt; Chiara Masellis, PhD student with the Laboratory of Molecular Physical Chemistry (ISIC) and Fauzia Jabeen, a postdoc with the Laboratory of Quantum Optoelectronics, purchased food and drinks and set up a food-and-drink tent for the runners at the finishing line; Vanessa Carle and Camille Villequey, PhD students with the Laboratory of Therapeutic Proteins and Peptides (ISIC) manned the tent during the entire day. The runners – at least those who still had the energy – also got together for dinner on Sunday evening after the race.

Four volunteer photographers stood along the tracks and at the start/finishing lines, photographing gigabytes’ worth of the FSB runners throughout the entire day: Grazvydas Lukinavicius, a postdoc with the Laboratory of Protein Engineering (ISIC), Hacer Karatas and Arkadiy Bazhin, a postdoc and PhD student respectively with the Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry and Molecular Imaging (ISIC), and Ruta Gerasimaite, a postdoc from UNIL’s Department of Biiochemistry.

The results were exciting: of the 30 teams participating in the half-marathon, the FSB team came in second; of the 53 teams running the 10 km race, the FSB team came in tenth. But the benefits of the effort were not limited to mere physical exercise: “The whole experience was very positive, and led to many new contacts within FSB,” says Professor Rainer Beck from the Laboratory of Molecular Physical Chemistry, who also participated in the Marathon.

Such collective ardor means that this won't be the last time FSB runs more than experiments. The plan, again led by Scarabelli, is to form another team for the 2016 Marathon, this time aiming at higher participation in the half-marathon. "The enthusiasm that everyone showed on Sunday and in the meetings we organized in the past weeks is one of the reasons that pushed me to give life to this project,” she says. “I sincerely hope we will manage to keep on organizing similar happy, healthy, and social events in the coming years."

The complete 2015 FSB running team:

• Albert Adiyatullin
• Alberto Schena
• Andrea Capozzi
• Andrew Clark
• Andrew Smerald
• Baptiste Le Gentil
• Braun Efrem
• Buratto Roberto
• Camarda Guillaume
• Céline Henzelin
• Chiara Masellis
• Claude Marion
• Clément Javerzac-Galy
• Cristina Lofat
• Dahye Choi
• Daniele Ongari
• Davide Tiana
• Dora Fejes
• Federico Halpern
• Federico Nespoli
• Florian Le Formal
• Gediminas Liaugaudas
• Hamish Patten
• Helen Farrants
• Jacques Duparc
• Jerôme Waser
• Johnanna Maria Huck
• Jonas Wilbs
• Jonathan Rochat
• Jörn Werdecker
• Kaycie Deyle
• Kazuteru Nonomura
• Linda Farczadi
• Liu Qiu
• Liudmila Voronina
• Louis Merlin
• Maarten van Reijzen
• Marco Malinverni
• Marina Freitag
• Markus Rexroth
• Matthew Mayer
• Matthieu Martin
• Milica Jovic
• Mirco Dorigo
• Niccolò Dal Santo
• Nicolai Cramer
• Nicolas Turin
• Pan Linfeng
• Paraficz Danuta
• Peng Gao
• Péter Szirmai
• Pierre Le Boudec
• Pierre Wets
• Rainer Beck
• Raphael de Fondeville
• Rémy Joseph
• Rocio Mercado
• Seyedmohamad Moosavi
• Silvia Scarabelli
• Simon Middendorp
• Thomas Foetisch
• Thomas Lugrin
• Tom Lummen
• Tuure Hameri
• Vamshi Mohan Katukuri
• Xudong Xudong Kong
• Yifei Liu
• Yoav Zemel
• Zorzi Alessandro