(Originally published September 19, 2011)
[Some people think of biking across the state in RAGBRAI as a challenge, but how hard can that be? I mean, those people are on wheels! And they can coast down hills! For those looking for a real challenge Relay Iowa offers the opportunity to run 340 miles across the state. This is part one of a two part series by guest writer Tim Bergan, who along with three other central Iowa runners, made their way relay-style across the state over the course of a couple days this past June. Because that was too easy for them they threw in a few quick miles in Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Illinois.]
2011 Relay Iowa... and then some
Report by Tim Bergan
Alan Cabelly said, “Any idiot can run a marathon. It takes a special kind of idiot to run an ultramarathon.” Well, my friends and I are a special kind of idiot. In 2010, we ran the inaugural Relay Iowa (the world’s longest continuous relay run at 340 miles) as part of a team of six. We went by the team name of Six Pack of Dummies, which pretty much fairly represents our mental capacity. Having completed that, and looking for the next team challenge, we decided to run Relay Iowa this year as a team of four. Four Pack of Dummies just didn’t make sense for a team name, so we decided to shorten it to just DUMMIES, and through Chip’s creative mind, that came to stand for Dimwitted Ultra Maniacal Marginally Insane Endurance Studs, all of which is true except for maybe the very last word.
There are four DUMMIES:
- Me, Tim Bergan, a Colfax, Iowa resident and a controller for a transportation and logistics services company.
- Chuck Fritz, a Clive, Iowa resident and business development expert for an information technology services firm.
- Chip Overton, a West Des Moines, Iowa resident and the owner of an architectural firm.
- Matt Scotton, a Newton, Iowa resident and the director of physical medicine and rehabilitation at a hospital.
I’m not sure how four otherwise seemingly normal people have come to enjoy things such as running a 51-hour, 340-mile relay from Sioux City to Dubuque.
Relay Iowa 2011 began on the morning of Friday June 10 and ran (pun intended) through Sunday, June 12, 2011 with four teams participating. Along with DUMMIES, there was Born to Run, Northwest Iowa Runners, and I-O Runs. Due to different teams running different paces, and the need to have teams finish within a window, slower teams start earlier than faster teams. This year, all four teams expected to run relatively similar paces, so the first team started at 6:54 A.M. from the Sergeant Floyd Monument in Sioux City. We began our Relay Iowa run at 8:10, and the other two teams followed closely after us at 8:30 and 8:47.
But, we didn’t really start running at 8:10. Remember earlier when I noted that we are idiots – well, our plan this year was to not just run Relay Iowa. No, we had something more in mind. We were going to run from South Dakota to Nebraska across Iowa into Wisconsin and then finish in Illinois. To accomplish our five-state goal, we began running at 6:30 A.M. as we started in South Dakota and made our way into Iowa. We then made our way to Nebraska, back into Iowa and to the Relay Iowa start line to begin our trek across Iowa.
With the other four teams having ten to twelve members each, as recommended by the race director, their logistics were a lot simpler than ours. They had the ability to run six members through the night while the other six slept. We, on the other hand, with only four of us, needed a support crew so that we could focus on running, re-fueling, resting, and getting some sleep. Our crew consisted of the following:
- Ed Scotton, Matt’s dad, and his recreational vehicle.
- Shelley Fritz, Chuck’s wife, and her parents’ minivan.
- Sandy Scotton, Matt’s wife, who would join us Saturday evening and see us through to the finish.
- Joe and Margot Stover, friends, who drove our two support vehicles Saturday night and early Sunday morning so our primary drivers could sleep.
- Julie Davison, my sister, who conveniently lives in Independence, Iowa which is right on the route and a location that we get to in the second night, which is the toughest part of the relay.
After we arrived at the start line, I led off this year’s Relay Iowa route with a leg of five miles. The first two and a half miles through Sioux City were comically hilly, followed by a rolling two and a half. Chuck followed me, Chip followed Chuck, and Matt followed Chip. We had a beautiful morning for running – 60 degrees, overcast, and a cooling five mile per hour breeze.
As we began our second rotation, I once again ran hills (Sioux City’s were short and steep . . . these were long and gradual). I noticed the beginning of a trend that would continue. Chuck followed with his second leg which took us through Anthon (one of a number of small Iowa towns on the course that I had never heard of prior to running Relay Iowa in 2010). Chip’s second leg consisted of him watching cows and cows watching him (we are in Iowa, after all). As Matt took over, his run soon took him on a gravel road, so he too had to (got to?) run hills.
My third leg started on gravel, moved to dirt (yes, dirt) and ended on gravel. If Matt thought his gravel roads were hilly, he should have run the dirt road with me. Two miles of serious up and down since roads like that just follow the contour of the hills with no attempt to smooth out the inclines and declines. I was thankful that it was only overcast and not raining, since rain makes mud of dirt and I’m not much for running with three pound shoes. At one point, I heard branches scraping behind me, turned to look, and discovered our RV support vehicle following me down the narrow, tree-lined dirt road. It was a beautiful road to run (tree covered and remote), but wasn’t necessarily designed for 28-foot motor homes. Chuck and Chip followed, mostly on paved roads, which took us to Ida Grove where there was a spaghetti dinner (if you call eating at 3:00 in the afternoon “dinner”) provided for us by the race director, Bill Raine. Matt continued on through Arthur (another of those small Iowa towns I didn’t know existed).
As we began our fourth rotation, I caught up to a runner from I-O Runs, the team that had left before us. I finally had a flat leg, and enjoyed the time I spent chatting with Karen prior to picking up the pace again and passing her. Chuck ran through Odebolt, Chip cruised through Lake View, and Matt kept us heading to the east as he pounded down Highway 175 early Friday evening. I think we were all happy to be putting miles behind us with no incidents. While a team of twelve can have something go wrong and still finish the relay, with only four of us, we couldn’t afford to have anything go wrong. A year ago, Matt got his feet caught in a loop of wire on the road he was running. He took a hard fall, but was okay. That’s just the kind of thing we didn’t want to have happen to us this year, so boring was good at this point.
Our fifth rotation started with me running from shortly after 7:00 to almost 8:00 Friday evening. Chuck ran through Auburn and Chip got us to Lake City. Matt left Lake City in the dark and had to play a game of car dodging as much of the traffic he was meeting failed to move over and give him room on the road. We spent some of our time in each of our support vehicles, using the RV to eat, change clothes, shower, and stretch out, and the van to shuttle runners and tease Shelley (things aren’t nearly as much fun if you take them too seriously). With nighttime now upon us, having two vehicles was about to become very valuable.
To this point, we had been running roughly five mile legs. It’s a distance that all of us can run comfortably and can run over and over (and over and over and . . . you get the point) again. Now, it was time to switch to ten mile legs, which was designed to allow us to get some sleep (which we didn’t do a very good job of in 2010 when we only had Ed and the RV to support us). I exited the van for my ten mile leg, Chuck joined Shelley in the minivan to support me, and Ed, Chip, and Matt drove twenty miles down the road where they parked and slept. It was a nice cool (though humid) evening and I had one of those runs where I didn’t feel good until about mile nine. Just as I started feeling good, it was time for Chuck to take over and for me to eat, drink, and make fun of Shelley. Chuck’s ten-miler included finding a thirty foot tape measure which he picked up and carried for awhile. I’m not sure what he planned on measuring at midnight in the middle of nowhere Iowa. He eventually came to the same conclusion and left it behind. When Chuck finished his ten miles, we switched places with Chip and Matt. They joined Shelley (what a trooper . . . she had yet to get any meaningful sleep) to do their ten-milers, and we joined Ed, drove twenty miles down the road, and slept. While the Friday night runs all kind of blended together, we passed through Lohrville, skirted by Harcourt, ran through Dayton, crossed the Des Moines River valley, and navigated Stratford.
With roughly 140 miles completed, we “only” had 200 to go...
[Part 2 will be posted later this week. Stay tuned.]
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