While the starting line for the 58th annual Drake University Road Races is months away, it is one day closer than before, as it has been moved from its traditional Sunday morning start time to Saturday.
The Road Races are a series of differently-distanced runs that aim to welcome a variety of runners, from beginners to experts. Their kickoff marks the beginning of the Drake Relays. Ben Huftalin, assistant director of the Drake Relays, is the race director for the Road Races. He oversees all operations, promotion and logistics leading up to the race, including the date change.
The idea of moving the race day came from attendance rates, said Huftalin. In years when Road Races would fall on Easter Sunday, it took place on a Saturday instead. These years tended to see higher attendance. In response to this, Huftalin and the Director of the Drake Relays, Blake Boldon, communicated with community partners and Drake Athletics regarding the timing. They also polled runners on their thoughts regarding the day.
“With overwhelming feedback, people preferred Saturday over Sunday,” Huftalin said. Actually, we had more people that said they didn’t have a preference on Saturday or Sunday than people that voted for Sunday.”
According to Huftalin, most of the people polled said in their feedback that Saturday Road Races would allow those who came to Des Moines just for the event an extra day to spend in the city. For Des Moines residents, a free Sunday morning means time for church or to run errands.
Boldon witnessed an earlier move of the road races to the start of Relays. Earlier, it had been on the weekend of Relays, when alumni events and track events were also occurring.
“While the campus was celebrating so many alumni activities, student activities, we had one of the world’s biggest track meets taking place in Drake Stadium,” Boldon said. “We also closed down 13 miles of city streets which complicated some things, obviously.”
Moving the races to the start of Relays week got them to a point where they “really flourished,” Boldon said. Boldon hopes that the change to Saturday will increase attendance further.
Junior Bethany Erkel ran the 10K Road Race last year. That year, the race took place on a Saturday, something Erkel appreciated.
“I usually go to church on Sundays, and Saturday morning just seems like a better time,” Erkel said.
Erkel looks forward to running with her roommate this year as well.
“We’ll start as soon as we’re back, spring semester, start training for the half marathon,” Erkel said. “We love that we can set a goal and work to reach it and work together.”
To get ready, one thing Erkel has to do is register, a process she called straightforward. Clark, a chatbot designed to aid participants in the process of registering for Road Races or the Grand Blue Mile, was introduced this year as well.
The bot, which is available on the Road Races website, is named after Clark Street, a part of the Road Races route. It has access to information on the race’s website to advise participants. If there is a question the bot can’t answer, it will send an email to the Road Races team.
“It’ll just really simplify the experience for everyone and hopefully make it a little bit smoother and hopefully cut down on some emails of people having to ask questions,” Huftalin said.
The bot was made possible through Drake’s partnership with the signup website RunSignUp. The Road Races are some of the earliest events to get access to this tool, said Huftalin.
Boldon added that the Relays team is able to monitor interactions and use them to teach the bot. As the Relays team finalizes its 2026 internship, aspects of using it as a marketing or customer service tool may be integrated into that.
So far, Huftalin has seen a positive community response to the changes through replies to the announcement email.
“We had a few people say that because it’s on Saturday, they’re able to do the Drake Road Races for the first time, so they were really excited about that,” Huftalin said. “The same thing with the chatbot, just people being excited that it’s just an easier, more simplified way for them to get answers to their questions.”
According to Huftalin, besides changes that occur every year, like merchandise designs, there are no other major changes coming to Road Races.
