Friday night, KC and I left for Des Moines. The reason for this was Saturday we attended the Drake Relays. The Drake Relays has long been a tradition here in Iowa of attracting many Olympic hopefuls to perform. In the past such greats as Carl Lewis, Edwin Moses and many others have run at Drake. What is special about this event is that not only are there Olympic hopefuls competing in the open class, but there are also the University class, the College class and the Iowa high school class. So, the Iowa high school athletes can see first-hand the current heroes of track and field.
Pretty cool, all in all. I can’t say I liked sitting on the bleachers for most of the afternoon, but that was the only drawback to an otherwise perfect day. The weather was great - mostly sunny and very little wind (just enough to keep the bugs away). We had great seats, in the second row on the south end of the stadium. While we weren’t right on the finish line, we were between the first and second turns on the track. Being in the second row, we were so close we could see the sweat beads on the runners faces as they went by. The track was fast Saturday; many new meet records and many near-world records for the day. In fact, there were new records for this season set in many areas.
One cool event for my home town of Muscatine, Iowa, was the Women’s Shot Put. The daughter of one of my basketball friends, Aubrey Martin, won the University/College Shot put with a throw of 51′ 2.75″ (15.61 meters). Last year Aubrey won the Iowa high school division at Drake (as well as her second state championship). KC and I didn’t make the Friday events, but KC’s brother did and he said they gave her a nice introduction and noted that she had won in two different years in two different divisions. Congratulations, Aubrey!
One of the coolest events of the day was after Joey Woody won the Men’s Invitational 400 meter hurdles (in 48.52). (Picture and other Drake Relays stories here.) He ran the victory lap carrying his infant son. VERY cool indeed. Too often we think of athletes as only performers - seeing him carrying his son around the track on the victory lap (and reaching out and receiving “5″ as he ran by) was extremely cool. A world-class athlete, probably one who will place at the Olympics, showed a lot of class and a lot of love for his son.
