What running 339 miles across Iowa taught me about home

It's time for some High Fructose Corn Sweat! 🌽💦

I laugh when people tell me Iowa is flat. I know this state’s geography in my knees and in the exhausted ache of my feet. And I know it is anything but flat.

I know this because I’ve run 339 miles across the state twice. And I am getting ready to do it a third time.

In December of 2022, Beau Anderson shared a sign-up link for Relay Iowa in the FlyOver Discord, which I run with Garrett Bucks. It had been a long, lonely pandemic, and I was ready to do absolutely insane things with strangers, so why not? I signed up. By January, we had a full team of friends, neighbors, and strangers. The only things binding us together were this newsletter and my friend Molly, who recruited for the team like she was on top of a pyramid scheme. (And let us all pray Molly never joins one, or we are cooked.)

That first year, I had no idea what I was in for. I didn’t realize that what will get you isn’t the running, but the lack of sleep, and the constant diet of Casey’s breakfast pizza. I was tired, cranky, and a little insane. I snapped at people who were nice to me. I swore I saw a mountain lion one night. I peed in a graveyard at 2am.

Molly, the Relay Iowa cult leader, told me after that first year that, “Running taught me that I can find peace in being alone and joy in being with others.”

She also shared a quote from Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights, “The way I think of joy — not only does it not exist absent of sorrow, but it actually requires sorrow to exist. The way I think of joy is that it is what is luminous about us when we’re helping each other, when we’re holding each other through our sorrows.”

I created this newsletter because I was fired during one of the worst times of my life. It led to this community that led to a Relay Iowa team — which raised money for a good cause, yes, but more importantly, put together a group of people who regularly say to one another, “You can do this. You got this.” And together we do.

Last year, I was a lot more prepared and a lot more intentional. I realized that the relay is a team sport, not an individual race. As Beau observed this year, “The paradoxical thing about the relay being a group run is that each of us is running solo most of the time, but we are literally running into each other’s arms over and over across the entire beautiful state of Iowa. No matter how far you want to go or how long it takes you, your teammate will be there for you when you are done.”

This year, we are running across a state that has rolled back civil rights protections for trans Iowans, banned many LGBTQ books, cut funding for SNAP benefits and lunch programs for needy kids, and passed one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country. It’s had a deep rightward shift.

But this place is not unknowable.

This place is beautiful. Because I’ve run across this state at night and in the rain and in the suffocating humidity. I’ve squatted in the cornfields and ruined a port-a-potty at the Field of Dreams. I don’t think even Chuck Grassley can claim that.

This year, as we run across the state, we are running into this state, not away from it. Each step is a reclamation of a place we love, a refusal to cede territory.

Our team runs to raise money for Iowa Trans Mutual Aid and Iowa Abortion Access Fund.

You can support us by buying items off our Amazon wish list (sorry, I know it’s the bad place, but it’s the best option for us).

• Amazon wishlist

• IAAF Corn Sweat Fund-a-Thon page. Through May 30, all donations to IAAF will be matched by the National Network of Abortion Funds.

• Iowa Trans Mutual Aid

• You can also buy Corn Sweat merch, which supports IAAF!

I also asked fellow Corn Sweat teammates to share why they run, and here is what they said:

Molly Monk, team recruiter:

Running Relay Iowa shows me beautiful parts of the state I would never see otherwise. There’s no reason I’d be running next to a cornfield outside of a small town in the middle of the night, seeing the moon and stars reflecting on everything and feeling so alive. I’m so grateful to see Iowa’s beauty like this.

— Molly Monk

Beau Anderson, team captain:

In December 2022, when I was deep in my feelings on the second anniversary of my mom's death, I registered a team for Relay Iowa and shared the registration link in the Discord with low expectations.

But we had a full team by mid-January, and we had a team name by the start of February: High Fructose Corn Sweat.

I learned so much about myself on the backroads of Iowa in 2019 and every year I've run Relay Iowa. I can push through. I'm so proud of this team and so grateful to my past self for putting the idea out there, because look what it has grown into. High Fructose Corn Sweat has raised tens of thousands of dollars for Iowans in need of abortions and gender-affirming care, and we spread joy from Sioux City to Dubuque every June. I never could have anticipated this, but High Fructose Corn Sweat is what makes my home state feel like home for me.

— Beau Anderson

Ted Weiland, team driver, soon to be runner:

My first role for the Relay Iowa was not to run, as many people I told about the event assumed I was doing, but to provide support to the runners through driving. My job was to either drive the active runners who were helping us move across the state, or drive the resting runners who were waiting for their next shift. The active runners were focused on their runs, but the resting runners would let their minds wander, and that's where I found the community. In business, there's the detested issue of "windshield time," which is considered wasteful and inefficient. But that's where the power is when it comes to building friendships and community.

Since that first experience, I signed up to drive again in 2024. Now, I’ll participate as a runner in 2025. This transition happened due to the community of friendships built through that first van drive to Sioux City. These relationships have evolved to house gatherings, celebratory parties, shared meals, and supporting each others’ work, both professional and volunteer. It's weekend runs and group chats, deriding those who have hurt us, and holding each other up when we are hurt. It's support at a fundamental level. It's community, it's friends, it's home.

— Ted Weiland

Here are some other wonderful bits of writing about Relay Iowa:

Molly wrote about running a marathon and Relay Iowa after her POTS diagnosis.

Brendan Leonard, not a Corn Sweat member, wrote a very fun piece about the relay as well.