Market to Market Relay
On May 11th, I finally realized a long time dream when I completed the Market to Market Relay. The race begins in Jefferson, IA and ends in downtown Des Moines. It is split into 17 stages and teams can be made up of 6 - 8 runners. I've been wanting to do this race since 2017 but until this year had failed to put a full team together. With the help of my good friend, Adam, we were able to put together a group of 8 John Deere employees to form a team. The team members consisted of:
- Adam
- Brady
- Andy
- Josh
- Cody
- John
- Logan
- Me
Our ages ranged from mid-20s to 40 years old and our running abilities were all over the board. While we all work at Deere, we were all relatively strangers before race day. We met at the ISG parking lot at 6:00 am on Saturday morning where we all hoped into the rented Ford Expedition to head for Jefferson. We stopped along the way to pick up Andy as he would have to leave us mid-day. It was a gorgeous day for a race!
We arrived in Jefferson just before 7:30 with a scheduled start time of 8:00. We received our team slap bracelet (to act as a baton), and Logan toed the starting line to lead us off. I handled most of the driving with John navigating in the passenger seat. The race provided a very detailed stage-by-stage description of both the running and driving routes which came in very handy. With only 20 teams starting every 30 minutes, the race was much more spread out in the early stages than I expected. At the first transition point, Logan handed off to Brady who was ready for stage 2.
Brady was the oldest of the group, but certainly not the slowest. We quickly hoped into the vehicle to head off to the 2nd transition point where Brady handed over the bracelet to Andy.
This was Andy's only stage to run for the day because he had to head home for kids activities, and he made it a good one. At the next transition, Andy handed off to John. The rest of us jumped in the car to head to the next transition in Yale.
John battled through his first stage, that was mostly up hill and nearly botched the hand off with Adam which gave us all a good laugh. Due to my injured ankle, Adam had agreed the night before to switch stages with me so I would have fewer miles to run.
At the next transition, Adam handed off to me where I proceeded to run the next 2.8 miles to Panora. My ankle held up okay during that first run and I actually ended up running faster than I expected on a bad ankle. It still wasn't great though and I could tell that I wasn't in the best shape either. I ended up averaging just over 11:30/mi.
In Panora, I handed off to Josh, who turned out to be the fastest runner on our team. Following my first stage, my ankle hurt A LOT for about 45 minutes. It was painful to drive and walk but eventually the pain began to fade. We met Josh in Linden where we loaded everyone up in the Expedition and headed to Redfield. There is a bridge out on the trail between Linden and Redfield so they had to exclude that section this year. In Redfield, our final runner, Cody, began his first stage. By this time the sun was getting high and the temperature had started to rise. We started going through a lot of water and Gatorade as a team.
At the end of stage 8, Cody handed back off to Logan and we started through the lineup again. Adam covered Andy's 2nd stage, which meant that he ended up running 2 stages with just a 1 stage break in between.
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| Logan running into Adel |
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| Adam starting his 2nd stage just south of Dallas Center |
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| John wrapping up his 2nd stage at Walnut Creek Elementary in Waukee |
After Adam's 3rd stage, he handed off to me at the Clive Aquatic Center where I ran another 2.8 miles down the Clive Greenbelt. My ankle again held up okay, but it was definitely less comfortable than the first stage resulting in a much slower pace. Again, for about an hour after my run I experienced some pretty bad pain.
After handing off to Josh, we had to hustle to the next transition point and he almost beat us there. The last 2 stages for Cody and Logan were a grind in the heat. Eventually, we met Logan down by the river and all ran across the finish line together.
A full day of team building and making new connections with people from work. It has been nearly 2 weeks and there is still almost daily conversations in the Teams group chat that we started for the race. Lots of talk about Des Moines Corporate Games events and Logan is even forming a relay team for the Quad Cities Marathon. Even with a bad ankle, I really enjoyed the day.
Recovery Updates
As mentioned in the race recap, my ankle did not do so well during my 2 short stages of the relay. That was really the only sour note on the day. Erin and I had several talks in the days following the relay and I made the extremely hard decision to stop running and suspend my racing season indefinitely. This will probably get some eye rolls, but it was one of the most difficult decisions I've ever had to make in my life. I decommitted from the DSM Corporate Games triathlon on May 19th, and backed out of the Clear Lake triathlon, Pigman triathlon, and Ledges trail race the 3 following weekends. To say that I am devastated would be an understatement.
Over the last 1.5 weeks, I have seen slow but steady improvement in my ankle. I have not worn my brace at all for over a week and I managed to mow the lawn on Sunday without it. About 90% of the time I have absolutely no pain or discomfort but the other 10% reminds me that I'm not there yet. After talking with my doctor, I begin physical therapy tomorrow.
Luckily, I had only signed up for races through mid-June, so I'm not losing out on a ton of money from race registrations but honestly, I don't even care about the lost money. I feel like I'm losing an entire racing season. Between the kidney stone and 2 surgeries in February and now the sprained ankle in April, this year is not turning out at all like I had hoped. I'm not letting myself formally commit to a timeline as I am in it for the long haul and really want to get my ankle fully healed before starting to run again. I am still hopeful that I can fit some races in at the end of the season but only time will tell.
For now, I'm getting a few rides in on the exercise bike each week and doing some strength training as well. I'm hoping to get back to the pool in the upcoming weeks and maybe start doing more walking if my ankle will tolerate it. I can feel my fitness level decreasing each day but just don't have the motivation to get after it too hard since I can't run. I've put more weight back on too, which is not great. Right now I'm just trying to get through each day. I know that someday I will be able to get back after it and refocus and in the end I hope to come back better than ever.
