Race America starts Iowa journey July 22

Sun July 27 2008
Posted Jul 27, 2008
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Race America 2008 is ready to take to the road. In honor of their 10th anniversary, the team will run through all 99 counties in Iowa and will run part of the way with participants of RAGBRAI. The team will leave from the Elgin, Iowa area this Monday, July 21. They will start running July 22 in Burlington, Iowa. The team will weave back and fourth in tiers of counties going from the Mississippi River to the Missouri River. "It's just getting off the beaten path," Lyngaas said. "I really have no idea what we're getting into and what we're going to see." July 25 the team will run the RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) path starting from just east of Tipton. Running with RAGBRAI is something Lyngaas has always wanted to try; however he was concerned about the escort van. Because of running with RAGBRAI, Lyngaas had to move the date of Race America up. Since the Fayette County Fair will be going on at that time, Lyngaas said he will be short runners at the beginning of the race. However as the fair ends, Lyngaas said he will have several runners joining the team in later days. He also said that several Race America alumni will be joining the team along the way. Lyngaas has another goal of getting someone from every county to join the team during their run and hopefully have a couple schools join them. While Lyngaas said responses from other schools has been slow because of the summer, he's hopefully schools will still run with them. Because of the heavy flooding in eastern Iowa, the path Lyngaas had in mind for the team might need to be altered along the way. "We won't know with the flooding until we get there," he said. If the team does need to change their route because of the flood, Lyngaas said he will rely on members of the communities for help. "We will talk to the locals for gravel roads that will be the shortest way around the detour," he said. The runners will return to Elgin August 1, having completed the 1,850 mile course.