Tradition means so many different things to so many different people. For many, the Drake Relays are a time of celebration, a time of homecoming, a time to let loose.
For the members of Drake University’s Track and Field team, Relays Week might look a little different, but it is a celebration nonetheless.
According to senior sprinter Savannah Ming, in many ways, the Drake Relays are no different than a regular meet. The team maintains their normal practice regimen throughout the week, a regimen that varies from event to event.
Ming said that even though there is a suggested list of warm-ups and workouts for athletes, ultimately what the days prior to meet day look like is up to the individual.
“Generally speaking, we do the same warm-up every day, but on pre-meet days, if you’d like to do something different that gets your body ready, you have the opportunity to do that,” Ming said.
The flexibility of the pre-meet training schedule allows athletes to do what they feel will serve them best in the days leading up to a meet, Ming noted.
“Some people maybe are, like, superstitious, and they don’t do anything the day before a race,” she said. “They just come hang out, maybe do a lap or two, maybe stretch, maybe go to the trainer, do some rehab, things like that. It is very much whatever makes us feel good and ready to go compete the next day as a team.”
Echoing that sentiment, senior distance runner Emilie Meyer said that the familiarity of being on her own home turf actually minimizes some of her stress in the hours leading up to her races.
“In terms of the Drake Relays, it’s a little different [than a regular meet] because I get to stay at my own house, which is super nice to stay in my own routine,” Meyer said. “But in terms of my dynamic warmups and everything, that routine stays the same.”
However, as similar as the mechanics of the Relays meet may be to other races throughout the season, Ming makes it clear that the Drake Relays are an event like no other, from both a personal and professional standpoint.
While the weekend races are the focus for athletes like Ming and Meyer, there is a campus-wide emphasis on the festivities, such as the vendors that set up shop on Forest Ave and the Friday night concert that closes out the week, that have helped solidify Relays Week as the celebration it has become. Even with their intensive training schedules, the athletes are encouraged to participate in the activities and let themselves have fun.
“We definitely try to celebrate the Relays as much as we can,” Meyer said. “It’s definitely a high-stress week for us too, just because we are competing, but we’ll go out and watch the Grand Blue Mile. We’ll watch the other events as much as we can when we’re not competing. We have a little bit of stress relief once our race is over, but we’ll enjoy the vendors outside the fieldhouse as well.”
Though Ming has also enjoyed participating in the Relays festivities throughout her time at Drake, some of her most memorable Relays moments have happened on the historic Blue Oval.
“[The energy] is insane,” Ming said. “There’s just Olympians and big names from… these big 10 schools that are usually at giant meets, and they’re hanging out in our jump pit. Drake isn’t a big school, but they’re on our home turf. It just kind of makes you feel like a big dog. There’s no other way to put it.”
Being a “big dog,” as Ming put it, both on the track as an athlete and off, working media behind the scenes, has allowed her to meet some of the biggest names in track and field. From escorting Olympic athletes to and from drug testing to snapping photos with Anna Cockrell, the 2024 Olympic silver medalist in the 400-meter hurdles, Ming says her overall experience of the Relays has been “so surreal.”
“I try to stress with the freshmen on the team how much of a unique experience this is,” Ming said. “There’s other relay meets — you’ve got Penn Relays, you’ve got Texas Relays, you know, all of that. But nowhere is it happening where the school is this small and gets to have such distinctive experiences.”
According to Ming, the highly interpersonal nature of Drake University is what really makes the Drake Relays stand out.
“[At other collegiate relays events], there’s thousands and thousands of people in the crowd and you’re not going to get to interact with people like that,” Ming said. “Drake Stadium is big, but we know a lot of the faces out there and they know us. I try to explain [to the first-years] that you can’t really understand it until you experience it, and every time after Relays, they come back and they’re like ‘Whoa, that’s what you meant.’”
