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Video by Senior Master Sgt. Vincent De Groot

Team Iowa Guard Runs World’s Longest Relay Iowa

185th Air Refueling Wing, Iowa Air National Guard

June 7, 2019 | 3:46

This weekend runners from Iowa Air and Army National Guard joined hundreds of others from around the nation for the running of the 2019 Relay Iowa. Relay Iowa is a three day nonstop relay that is hailed as the world’s longest relay.

The event is a 336 mile relay that started in Sioux City on the West side of the state and ends is in the East side of the state in Dubuque, Iowa about 50 hours after it began.

This is the tenth year of the event but it is the first year a team from the Iowa National Guard is participating. The Iowa Guard is one of 40 teams and 450 participants in the massive relay.

All of the members of the Iowa Guard team are experienced runners. The Iowa guard team is made up of twelve runners who are all current members of the guard. Six members of the team are from the air guard and six are from the army guard. Team members are young and old, they include officers and enlisted and they are both active and traditional guard members.

Organizers of the giant relay say the run is purposefully designed to try the spirit. The event has them, “Stretching their limits of physical endurance, testing their mental toughness and drawing upon their emotional well place.”

All of the runners from the Iowa Guard who are involved in the event are volunteering their time in order to participate.

Lower Thirds:
00:00:00 - 00:10:00 Sioux City, Iowa

00:01:39 Major Randall Stanford; Iowa National Guard

00:02:34 Bill Raine event organizer Relay Iowa