Relay Iowa 2015

Recently, I ran one of the most fun runs of my life. It began June 5th and finished on June 7th, and voyaged across the state of Iowa. Similar to the RAGNAR series, the Relay Iowa run is a relay race with teams up to 12 runner/walkers. Some of the biggest differences however with this relay and RAGNAR are: you do not have to run set distances, this run is much farther with this past year being 341 miles, and its a little bit more relaxed, which is a good thing.

So here is my story/stories from this adventure that I was lucky enough to embark on. ( I will say that this is going to be quite the long post, as there are quite the stories from the event. If you follow my facebook page, you may have seen the posts from the few days)




3 days, 60 hours, 339 341 miles, a helluva lot of hills, so many little cities that I will never remember their names, and countless new friends later, my team, The Dubuques of Hazard made it from Sioux City to Dubuque, Iowa. As you can see to the right, we weren't the only people crazy enough to take the trek through Iowa. Now, those who know this wonderful state, you know how boring it can be. I am telling you, it is extremely desolate for about 80% of the state, but when you are running across it with hundreds of other people, it makes it quite an interesting journey.

June 5th. The first day was a lot of fun. We were all fully rested and ready to run. We approached the start line and painted up our car with festive colors, making sure we could pick our car out of the many other team vehicles. We had to get our team picture at the start line, as you can see below, we all were happy and cheerful and ready to get the show on the run.

We split our group into 3 smaller groups and chose our cars. Each car was going to do 15 miles, then switch off with the next car. Our first runner took off, and being in the leading vehicle, our car followed. I was the third runner in the rotation, and it seemed like June 5th hated me.

For those who don't know, Iowa is hilly on its east-most side and on its west-most side. Sioux City was extremely hilly and we knew Dubuque was going to welcome us home with some rough-ass hills. I seemed to draw the short end of the stick of the first day, as my first two runs, one 2.5 and the other 1.5 miles, were uphill. At least I had a wonderful team to cheer me up them. Other teams also pulled alongside the road and cheered everyone on.

#FirstCarGroupie

The guy with the bird on his head

I think that was one of my favorite things about this run. Everyone, the volunteers, the other teams, your teammates, and the spectators knew how crazy this was that we were running across a state and everyone was there to offer their support and encouragement.

We hung along with the other cars and cheered on the rest of our team on as we made our way to Anthon, our first checkpoint. I have a funny story about Anthon. My car stopped at the gas station for a bathroom break and some food. Another team, The Young and the Rest of Us, had also stopped. As I was sitting in the car, I heard one of their team members say: "there's a bird on my head!" And low and behold, I turn and see, as you can guess, a bird had landed on his head. Me and a couple of the ladies in my car refereed to him as bird boy for the rest of the trip.

Satan's Dunes

Anthon also marked the end of the nice hills. When my car got the chance to run again, we were in the middle of nowhere, on gravel that mimicked sand, and the hills went straight up and then straight back down. We had the roughest part of the run. It was hell. We nicknamed this portion of the run, Satan's Dunes. I messed up one of my tendons near my groin and had to be adjusted often to make it feel better. Like I said, I drew the short end of the straw for the first day.

We made it to Ida Grove, where we were welcomed with a spaghetti dinner and ice cold showers. Im not kidding when I say ice cold. However, it was nice to rinse off after running on gravel as we were covered in dirt. Also, we were finally out of the gravel. It was so nice to say that.

Me running.

Our car had to run once more around 11pm. I will say this. Running in the middle of nowhere where you know that there are plenty of critters around you is creepy enough during the day. Take the lights out and it gets a little spooky. It is almost an adrenaline booster though. The miles seemed to fly by, and it was interesting to only be able to see whatever the headlamp was shining over.

June 6th: The morning started out very early with our group finishing our run around 1 am, then driving to Dayton to sleep in a park. Awake at 3ish we were to go to our handoff spot. We were determined though. The next checkpoint we were headed to was Ellsworth, a city that had a pancake breakfast waiting for us. One of the most interesting things along our route was called "The Pit". As a team, we were given maps and elevation charts for the run. The pit was a location where in a relatively flat area of land, the elevation chart made a sudden "v".

The Pit. An elevation drop of 300 ft, then gain of 300ft. 

The second day really wasn't all that bad. A fairly flat terrain, and teams were now starting to catch up to one another, so you had people to run with or at least could see the runners in front of you. Like I said, we had The Young and the Rest of Us, The Roosters, and Ferocious Extreme Beasts around us and we would cheer them on, then they would cheer us on, and so forth. There was a point after Ellsworth where I was running and ahead of me was The Roosters choreographing a dance. It made for wonderful entertainment along the route.

Later that day, there was a family friend of one of our teammates who offered us some food and showers, which was one of the nicest things ever. They even had real beds that they encouraged us to take a nap in. Oh man, was I ever grateful for them. We had one more run before Independence, our next checkpoint, which we did with ease. However once we had arrived in Independence, I had gotten sick, and took a break until 3 am to run again.

June 7th: Today was the day. We knew we would be finishing in about 10 hours, so our team was pumped. I had shuffled into a new car and we took off around 3 am, starting in Manchester. An interesting story about Manchester. On our way in, I was running and thought I kept hearing shuffling from a critter during my portion. I had nothing to worry about however. It was one of the other runners in my car who did. During his portion, he saw a skunk. Ugh...I was on the lookout after hearing this because I was up to run after him. I was completely paranoid.

The storm we ran through. 

Oh and another story about that morning run. So a bit of a back story first. For those of you who live in Iowa, you know that the summer is a breeding ground for thunderstorms. We figured that we would eventually come across a storm or two on this race, and of course we did! The second half of our Manchester run, it started to rain. Then pour. Then the lightning and thunder came. We monitored the time
difference between the bolt and the rumble, and made sure nothing got too close to us. I did get the chance to run in it though. What a neat

A cop had stopped to check on a runner
who was out at 3:30 am in the rain. 

experience to run in the darkness when about every couple minutes a lightning bolt strikes and lights up the entire area around you. Wow.

After running, we took off to Epworth, our last city before our Dubuque hills. I was lucky, since my family lives in Dubuque, they met me out at my portion and cheered me on. My mom even jumped in for a mile and ran with me. It was nice being in familiar territory and knowing exactly where you are and how much further you have to go before you are finished.

As we approached the finish line, there were a few of us that had tears in our eyes, as we could not believe that we had ran across the state of Iowa. It was such a joyous experience to finish and say that you have crossed an entire state. We even got keychains from the children who have been benefited from the charity behind the race, Restoring Hope Village in South Africa.

Our team at the finish line. 

Really, this was such an amazing experience, and I am looking forward to doing it again next year. I had the opportunity to meet so many new, awesome people and experience such amazing things. I cannot wait for 2016. 

This is a video of our team during our race. One of our drivers had a GoPro and created this awesome video for us. Enjoy