A Sure Sign of Spring: The (often cold, windy and rainy) Drake Relays
I help the Cedar Rapids Gazette with coverage of "America's Athletic Classic" each spring — and it's a crown jewel event for Des Moines
I have a love-hate affair with the Drake Relays. I hate where it falls on my calendar — shortly after the conclusion of Iowa State spring football. I love the field it attracts, from precocious middle-schoolers to world champions and Olympic medalists.
I focus on the university athletes and the elites. My friend and colleague Jeff Linder covers the high schools. We share laughs between deadlines; spreading on sunscreen one day, and draping ourselves in rain gear the next.
It’s a wonderful, terrible and always eventful three days — and here (below) are some of the stories I wrote this time.
IOWA WINS SEVERAL EVENTS, IOWA STATE SECURES MEN’S RELAYS CUP
DES MOINES — Absence made Iowa sprinter Holly Duax’s legs churn faster.
Three years removed from winning four state titles at Drake Stadium as a senior at Sioux City West, the Hawkeye junior raced to two Drake Relays title Saturday — helping her team win the Relays Cup for the first time since 2021.
“In high school, it was easy to kind of get caught up in my head and feel like I had so many expectations,” said Duax, who won the 100-meters and ran the first leg of Iowa’s winning sprint medley relay team. “If I won, it was cool. Everybody was expecting that, But if I lost, it would be this huge deal, so I had so much pressure to perform.”
Duax’s swift efforts on Saturday were accompanied by a sense of elation instead of anxiety. She clocked 10.98 seconds in the 100 while running into a stiff headwind, then helped the Hawkeyes finish in 3:44.12 in the sprint medley relay triumph — less than half a second ahead of Iowa State, which settled for second in that race and the women’s Cup standings.
Iowa senior Alli Bookin-Nosbisch — an Ottumwa native — took the baton as the anchor in that race, and surged to the lead to earn her first Relays flag.
“We knew we were gonna do something special,” she said.
The Iowa State men entered Saturday’s events with a similar feeling. The Cyclones won their first men’s Relays Cup since 2001, essentially sealing the crown with a victory in the sprint medley relay.
“In high school, that’s always the dream,” said ISU’s Ty Koehnk, who like teammate Mikey McClain, is a native Iowan who clutched his first Relays flag. “But you come to the university level and you get another shot at it, so just to be able to follow through on something that mean’s so much you means a lot. Hopefully there’s more to come.”
The Iowa women edged Iowa State in the Cup standings, 36-33. The Cyclone men outpaced the Hawkeyes, 35-26, in their Cup race.
Iowa racked up six Relays wins on Saturday. The Hawkeyes swept the women’s 4 x 400 invitational and university division titles. Ryan Johnson won the championship flight in the men’s hammer throw. His last throw (233-5) was his best, but he’d already wrapped up the victory.
“I remembered how to throw the hammer,” Johnson said. “I kind forgot the first five throws.”
The Iowa men’s shuttle hurdle relay team won gold, as well.
“It was about the statement and putting on a show,” said Iowa’s anchor on that relay, Kai Graves-Blanks. “That’s what we came out here to do. Wanted to make it fun for the crowd, make it fun for everybody and have a little bit of fun (ourselves).”
Darius Kipyego of Iowa State certainly enjoyed being the anchor of that winning sprint medley relay team.
“I had no doubt I could outkick these guys,” he said.
He also took a tumble after crossing the finish line. Two days earlier, his brother, Devan, did a mock home run swing after anchoring a win.
So was the fall a celebration of sorts?
“That’s the thing,” Darius Kipyego joked. “You gotta change it up a little bit.”
IOWA STATE SLUGS ITS WAY TO A FIELD-CLEARING WIN
DES MOINES — Iowa State runner Devan Kipeygo treated the final straightaway as the batter’s box.
He took a few practice swings in the form of fist pumps. He knew he’d anchored his team’s 4 x 1,600-meter relay team to a stress-free Drake Relays win Friday, so when he crossed the finish line, he pretended to line up a hanging curveball, swinging the baton up triumphantly after serving as the Cyclones’ clean-up hitter.
“We did plan that yesterday,” Kipyego said of his flag-waving, baseball-based celebration with teammates Quinton Orr, Joash Ruto, and Robin Kwemoi Bera. “And (ISU) coach (Jeremy Sudbury) going down the last 200 (meters), he was like, ‘Go celebrate. Have fun with this.’”
Orr shined as the Cyclones’ starting pitcher, building a three-second lead in the opening leg. Ruto and Bera were stingy in middle relief, giving ISU an expansive enough lead over second-place Drake to allow Kipyego to swing for the fences.
“This week, we looked at it (like), ‘Hey, we’re starting another training block,’” said Orr, a Humboldt native who finished second at the Relays once as a prep, but never clutched a coveted champion’s flag until Friday. “Drake Relays is a lot of fun, like Devan said. We go out there, have a blast, have fun with it (and) kick really hard.”
ISU won the event at the Relays for the ninth time overall but the first time since 2022. But consider Friday’s triumph as more of a spring training game. The Cyclones seek to excel the most in the events that comprise the Drake Relays Cup — the men’s and women’s 4 x 100, 4 x 400, 4 x 800, sprint medley relay, and distance medley relay.
“We’re trying to win (that), so setting the momentum in place and looking to win the rest of the relays,” Orr said. “Starting it off right and getting things rolling is important.”
Bera and Ruto kept Friday’s relay rolling by running much shorter distances than they’re accustomed to traversing. Both are cross-country All-Americans who specialize in the 5,000 and 10,000-meters, so they almost felt like sprinters in the win.
“It’s really good, because when we’re in cross country, we have endurance, so we love some speed also,” Bera said. “It’s good for us to work on speed. We really like it.”
All of them also really like winning, of course — especially Orr, who feels like he’s been a perpetually second-place finisher throughout his career, and not just at Drake.
“In high school, I don’t know exactly how many runner-ups I had, but I had three in cross-country, and I had multiple on the track,” the junior said. “I’ve always had that chip on that shoulder and, man, people love winners. … I’m sure there’ll be pictures of me holding the Drake Relays champion flag. Like, no one’s gonna know what split I ran or how it went. They just see one. So that’s cool and that’s fun.”
Just like Kipyego’s grand-slam post-race theatrics, which fired up the crowd and his team.
“I like the Phillies,” the Warwick, R.I. native said. “So we did a little Bryce Harper.”
ELITE NATIVE IOWANS RETURN TO THE FAMED BLUE OVAL
DES MOINES — Karissa Schweizer owns the Drake Relays record in the women’s 1,500-meters. Fellow Iowan Shelby Houlihan holds the American record for that distance. But both international track stars embraced Tuesday night as non-winners after the USATF one-mile championships.
Consider that an aberration — and fuel for their respective internal fires entering Saturday’s elite mile event at Drake Stadium.
“I mean, we wanted to go one-two on Tuesday,” said Schweizer, a former standout at Dowling Catholic and Missouri, who finished second to Krissy Gear in Tuesday’s record-breaking race. “We’re definitely having some revenge on Saturday.”
Schweizer and Houlihan — a former Sioux City East and Arizona State star — will take aim on a 50-year-old Drake Relays record in the women’s mile set by Francis Larrieu. Schweizer seeks her 14th Relays medal. Houlihan is chasing her 17th medal on the blue oval.
“So many cool memories,” said Houlihan, who returned to the track after serving a four-year ban for an anti-doping violation. “And I was watching some of the high schoolers warming up in the warm-up area, and I’m thinking about how I was in high school warming up (there). A lot of just random memories.”
Houlihan swept up the 2018 and 2019 USATF titles in the 1,500-meters and 5,000-meters in her most recent trip to the famed blue oval.
Schweizer’s Relays record-setting run in the 1,500 came in 2018. She placed in the top-10 in both the 5,000 and 10,00 at the 2024 Paris Olympics and joined Gear in qualifying for the 2025 World Athletics Road Running Championships because of their one-two finish.
“Very good memories coming back,” said Schweizer, who is an Urbandale native. “Honestly, I was just so nervous in high school racing (here), so it brings back some nerves, but it’s all good nerves. It’s exciting to compete with a home crowd, and just to be bale to come back to an event where you’ve competed so much (and) you’ve watched the pros race before — it’s cool to come back as a pro.”
Especially when breaking records is on her and Houlihan’s minds. Both joined Gear in breaking the previous American benchmark in the mile on Tuesday, so expect a furious pace on Saturday to emerge, as well.
“Once you get on that line, it’s like everyone’s going for blood,” Schweizer said.
Houlihan concurred.
“Definitely,” she said with a smile.
IOWA STATE’S CONNELL FINALLY “EARNS” DRAKE RELAYS FLAG
DES MOINES — Iowa State distance runner Kiki Connell owns two Drake Relays flags.
But on Thursday, she finally earned one herself.
“This is the first — actually, OK, this is the second,” said Connell, who won the open 3,000-meter steeplechase event.
Let her explain …
“Peter Smith ran for Iowa State, All-American in the 1,500 last year, and I told him I had never had a Drake flag before,” said Connell, who clocked in at 10.16.83 to finish ahead of Kendall Martin of Oregon, who took second, and Cyclone teammate Sheridan Wheeler, who placed third. “And he is the humblest, most godly men I’ve met and before the (2024) Drake Relays he goes, ‘I’ll win you a flag.’ The next day (one) was sitting in my locker.”
Connell won by nearly four seconds and joined former ISU standout Abby Caldwell as the program’s only winners in the event at the Relays. Connell — who missed the 2024 outdoor season because of injury — hopes to build off Thursday’s flag-waving triumph in next month’s Big 12 Championships and beyond.
“We’ve just been taking it race by race (and) literally barrier by barrier,” she said. “So we’re just gonna have to talk through what conference looks like. This was a big confidence builder of I can race. I remembered how to race. It took a while to get back into it.”
So where will Connell display her “earned” and “gifted” Relays flags in the future?
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m getting married in August to (Division II All-American) Riley Witt, who (ran for) St. Ansgar prep. So we’ll see where all of our memorabilia ends up. I don’t know. Maybe the living room? I don’t know.”
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