Unable to bend his fingers in the cold, first-year MPA student Jacob Lowe used his whole hand to shift gears as he cycled up Mount Carmel in the middle of the night. Cheering him on were the other members of his cycling team made up of students, faculty, alumni, and friends of the BYU Marriott School of Business MPA program.
Lowe was one of 16 iMPActers—racers representing the MPA program—who participated in the 2024 Salt to Saint relay race that spans 429.2 miles from Salt Lake City to Saint George, Utah. The race consisted of 24 segments that could be ridden entirely by a single rider or divided up among team members.
Lowe embraced the experience of riding with a team. After reaching the top of Mount Carmel, Lowe passed the baton to his teammate for the next segment, rather than enjoying the descent himself. “It was satisfying to know that the next rider would benefit from the hard work I’d done and that I could be joyful in his success as well,” Lowe says. “I told him to hit 40 miles per hour on the way down for me.”
This attitude of teamwork was a highlight of the race for other iMPActers, too. “Being part of that team has actually been a bright spot in the MPA program,” says Alli Haack, another first-year MPA student. “Working together and supporting each other can really create a community, even when there are such obvious differences between people,” she says.
The iMPActers participated together but were split into two eight-person teams. As one person from each team rode, the rest of the team followed along in cars, leapfrogging the riders and cheering them on through each segment. For MPA Assistant Professor Breck Wightman, the time spent in the vehicle—with team members who were mostly new to each other at the start of the race—was one of the coolest parts of the relay. “It was really fun seeing everyone start to mesh and have inside jokes and fun memories and experiences,” he says.
The race tested the team members’ endurance as they battled heat, cold, and inclines, all with minimal sleep. “There’s a connection that’s born when you’re going through something hard,” says Chris Silvia, an MPA associate professor who helped organize the team. He recalls watching as one teammate got back in the vehicle after riding, and another teammate helped rub the warmth back into the tired rider’s feet. “You don’t get those types of connections in class or in a department picnic.”
The September 2024 race marked the second time a team represented the MPA program in a cycling relay. The idea to race got started in 2023 when Silvia discussed a mutual love for cycling with Karee Brown, who was the program manager at the time for the Romney Institute of Public Service and Ethics. They assembled a team of 10 MPA faculty, staff, alumni, and students to race in the 2023 Saints to Sinners relay race from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas.
The MPA faculty and staff who participated in 2023 were inspired to repeat the event after their positive experience. In that first race, Brown was feeling tired—having ridden three sections already—when she came up the royalty route, the toughest section of the race with an elevation gain of 341 meters over 15.21 kilometers. Brown was unsure if she could make it to the top—or if she could even ride the next segment—but her teammates supported and encouraged her. “They saw more in me than I could see in myself,” she recalls, “and when I got up to the top, they were there cheering for me.”
Brown completed the climb in just barely more than 48 minutes, the fastest women’s time that year, and earned the title Queen of the Mountain. “This experience is a good metaphor for the MPA program,” says Brown. “It’s going to be a steep climb, but there’s going to be a lot of support along the way and waiting for you at the top.”
After competing in the 2024 race, Haack also connected cheering on her teammates to lessons about teamwork from her experiences in the program. For Haack, a large part of the MPA program involves working in teams that are assigned in the first semester. She recalls feeling initially surprised by how different each team member was. Haack has learned that even when she hasn’t had the experiences to fully empathize with her teammates, it’s still important to cheer them on.
Lowe was also grateful for the support of his team and how they helped him understand what he is capable of. “There’s an inherent satisfaction in setting out and accomplishing something that’s hard,” says Lowe. “I will look back to this experience throughout my life and say, ‘I did that hard thing: I can do this hard thing.’”
After 31 hours, 4 minutes, and 1 second, the iMPActers crossed the finish line—together.1 Team members who had been cheering on the final riders decided to ride with them for the last two miles and finish as a team. “The sense of accomplishment was really cool” Haack says, “because I was part of something bigger instead of just working toward the goal on my own.”
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Written by Elizabeth Walker
Notes
- 2024 Salt to Saint Relay Results.
https://salttosaint.com/home/results/2024-salt-to-saint-relay-results/