JEFFERSON — Up to 2,500 runners on 325 teams from 18 states will compete in the third annual “Market to Market Relay Iowa” Saturday, May 9, once again using the full length of the Raccoon River Valley Trail (RRVT) on its “south loop.”
The teams, which can include six to eight runners each, will run a 75-mile relay race from the courthouse square in Jefferson at the northern trailhead of the RRVT to the Court Avenue District of downtown Des Moines, with 17 exchange zones on the route.
The entire relay is on trails, going from the RRVT’s southeast trailhead in Waukee on trails through the western suburbs of Urbandale, West Des Moines and on into the city of Des Moines.
Lead-off runners will begin leaving the courthouse square in Jefferson at 6 a.m. that day, in seven different “waves” of 40 or more runners each. The fastest runners are assigned to the last couple of waves, with the final one scheduled to start at 9 a.m.
The public is invited to watch the runners all along the trail but especially at the exchange zones and in the towns on the trail. If you want to see the winners finish, the last exchange is at Gray’s Lake in Des Moines, and you’d want to be there by 2:30 p.m. The last leg of the relay is from there to downtown, with the actual finish line being on the west end of the Court Avenue Bridge.
The anchor runners and other team members will be arriving there from 3-8 p.m. From there, they will move to an open area outside the nearby El Bait Shop for the awards ceremony and “post-race shindig.”
From the experience of the first two “M2M Relay Iowa” events, you probably remember that a few of the teams are made up of serious, very competitive and talented runners – many of them recent college track athletes. Most teams, however, are groups of friends of varying running proficiencies.
Some teams turn out in wild costumes. Each team has a van or SUV to transport the non-running team members from exchange zone to exchange zone.
The exchange zones are staffed by a total of 250 volunteers from 17 or more non-profit groups. They assigned 10 workers to be at the exchange zones for four hours, and the M2M Relay Iowa organization makes a donation to the non-profit organizations to compensate them for their volunteers’ time. Those donations have totaled more than $140,000 in the first two years of the event in Iowa.
Coordinating those volunteers this year are Dan Towers of Jefferson, Karen Sievers of Panora, Bob German of Dallas Center – all three from the RRVT Association – and Brittany Heard of Des Moines.
M2M Relay Iowa is planned and operated by “Pink Gorilla Events,” an 8-year-old company co-founded by Ben Cohoon and Jason Bakewell, now both 33, who grew up playing soccer and running together in Lincoln, Neb. (Their official starter at their races is always the pink gorilla, which is usually Bakewell wearing an outrageous ape costume, signaling the start of the race with a loud blast on his old trombone, then running the first few steps with the competitors.)
They have similar ultra-relays in Nebraska and Ohio.
Gold-level sponsors of M2M Relay Iowa are Leinenkugel’s Brewing Copany, Whole Foods Market and Dino’s Storage. The designated charitable organizations benefiting most from direct contributions from the relay are the RRVT Association and Above + Beyond Cancer.
For more information, including relay results on race day, visit the Market to Market Relay website.
