Hard-core adventure racing made it's way back into Iowa, a state considered by outsiders to
be flat, and one on the bottom of the list for public lands.
Organizers Jerrett Fried and Steve Oberbroecklin were intent on dispelling the myth regarding Iowa's flatness, and were able to string together several segments of public land along the Des Moines River. Knowing that the race started and finished at one of the few downhill ski areas in Iowa, should have been clue-enough for those traveling from out of state for this first-year event.
"This was one of the hilliest race we've ever done!" exclaimed a team from Missouri, which shares a slice of the Ozark Mountains with neighboring Arkansas.
While the hills awaited competitors in the 8 or 12 hour race options, mother nature also threw her own wrench into the cogs of the race by drenching the area in heavy rains the evening prior to the race - creating a muddy quagmire of the single-track trails around Seven Oaks Recreation Area.
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The newly coined Drake Relays Half-Marathon and 8K Road Race is now in our rear view mirror and quite dramatically reflects the sea of change happening on the U.S. running scene.
As I was perusing the results, the number of males and females in the half marathon jumped out at me. Quickly, I jumped to the results of the 8K and noticed an even more dramatic difference in gender participation, females besting males in numbers by nearly one-third!
Curious, I dug into national statistics to see if I could find differences and trends in the number of males vs females competing in races around the country to see if Drake was an anomaly or right on. What I found surprised me even more - change is happening quickly and on a massive scale. While men continue to own the marathon, women are taking on a leading role in participation from everything from 5K runs to the half-marathon. In addition, overall numbers of runners are growing exponentially, up nearly three-fold since 1990, from 4.8-million to nearly 13-million!
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It is rare that you feel the beat of music through your chest as you walk into a mall, but that's just the sensation you got as you entered Jordan Creek Mall for the Drake Relays Pole Vault in the Mall, presented by the Hy-Vee Triathlon on Wednesday, April 25 in West Des Moines.
The event, pre-loaded with lots of hype, attracted some of the top jumpers in the world.
"I'd heard it was electrifying. I'd heard it was just an amazing place to jump," said Jenn Suhr, the current leading jumper in the world and holder of the American indoor record of 16 feet.
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More than 2012 runners celebrated the opening of the 2012 Drake Relays at the first competitive event of the week-long track and field meet in Des Moines.
The third Grand Blue Mile was held on a glorious evening and record numbers turned out to challenge themselves in either the mile or in the quarter-mile Iowa Kidstrong race held for elementary kids from central Iowa. Nearly 2,500 finished the mile and hundreds more ran in the Iowa Kidstrong Fun Run.
Kicking off the mile, the recreational division boasted the largest field, starting at 6:20, next to the Papajohn Sculpture Garden, on Locust Ave., headed east to 6th Ave., where the course turned north for the one-block haul up to Grand Ave. From there, a left turn pointed runners back west for the 7-block run to the finish at 13th St.
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