Last year Chris Henning wasn’t sure what to expect when 220 teams of runners used her Bull Head Farm as an exchange zone during the Market to Market Relay/Iowa. This year as veteran, she has an idea of what it will be: controlled chaos.
The 2014 Market to Market Relay/Iowa this Saturday, May 10, will include 300 teams and 2,200 runners from two countries, 18 states and 142 Iowa cities. Henning would enjoy talking with some of them, but that isn’t likely to happen. Runners don’t eat and run; they use the kybos and run. They don’t stay for conversation. “They’re on a mission. They came to run and that’s what they do,” Henning said.
The run from the courthouse square in Jefferson to Bull Head Farm is the first of 17 segments of a 75-mile route that uses the Raccoon River Valley Trail’s south loop and trails through Waukee, Clive, West Des Moines and Des Moines. It’s a 4.8 mile run to Bull Head Farm and is rated by Market to Market organizers as “medium” in difficulty.
The race is a relay, complete with a baton. The entire team will send off the first runner from the starting point in front of the courthouse. The other six runners will travel by vehicle to the hand-off point, where the first runner passes off the baton to a teammate and climbs in the vehicle. The process will repeat itself until finishing at the Court Avenue bridge in Des Moines.
That process is what Henning calls “controlled chaos.” Bull Head Farm is on P Ave, a gravel road, south of 265th St. The vehicles park along the west side of the road. “They come barreling in jockeying to get the first parking space they see. They’ll jump out of their vans, use the kybo maybe, drink some water maybe, and wait for their runner. It isn’t usually too long of a wait. They cheer for their runner, pass the baton, and jump in the van again as fast as they can,” Henning explained.
She’ll have 10 local volunteers there, spending their time to garner a donation from Market to Market organizers for Jefferson Matters: Main Street. “The job is to have strong people to guide the traffic in and out. You can’t be bashful doing it,” she said. She added that she thinks it will be easier this year than last, since many of the teams are returning teams and will be familiar with the parking situation, and the volunteers are returning also.
The teams are stacked in “waves” depending on previous running times reported on the registration forms. The slower teams have the earlier start times, giving them a head start on the faster runners so the finish in Des Moines is less spread out. The first wave of runners will leave Jefferson at 5:40, with waves starting in 20 minute intervals until 9:30.
Henning expects the first runners to be at Bull Head Farm shortly after 6. Then for the next four hours or so the pace will be frantic as teams arrive, make a fast hand-off, and leave as quickly as possible. A “sweeper” on a bicycle will follow the last runner, checking for lost or discarded items or for problems. “And then, it will be totally quiet,” Henning said. “There wasn’t another sound and it was like the whole thing had never happened,” she remembered from a year ago.
The kybos and exchange point flags will be picked up Saturday afternoon, and while runners are still making their way to Des Moines, the Greene County volunteers will be back in their regular Saturday routines.
Henning credits the Market to Market Relay staff as being extremely organized. “They come with a flag to put at the exchange point, and packed with the flag is a hammer for the stakes that hold it down. They’ve thought of everything,” she said.
She said she’s looking forward to seeing the fun costumes some of the teams wear and the enthusiasm of all the runners. “But then, it will be over, and we’ll ask each other, ‘What was that?’ It’s a different way to spend a Saturday morning,” she said.
