Each year, the top collegiate and professional track and field athletes converge on the blue track at Drake Stadium in Des Moines to compete in a packed house full of 14,000 screaming fans.

The Drake Relays provide one of the most unique environments in track and field – an environment in which Cyclones Lisa Koll and Jenna Caffrey feel right at home.

Both Caffrey and Koll have been competing at the Drake Relays since high school, and Caffrey is something of a Drake Relays high school legend, having won three 100-meter hurdle championships for Burlington High School.

“For kids like Lisa and Jenna, they have grown up watching Iowa State on the track at the Drake Relays,” coach Corey Ihmmels said. “And now, to be able to put the jersey on and be able to do it at the Drake Relays, is special – it’s something that is on the schedule every year and they look forward to it.”

For both Koll and Caffrey, the meet provides an opportunity to compete in front of family and friends and get back to where it all started.

“The Drake Relays is the place where I have experienced the best times of my career in the last 5 years,” Caffrey said. “It feels like a home meet. Returning each year brings a feeling of comfort.”

Like Caffrey, Koll looks forward to returning to the Drake Relays every year to compete in a familiar environment.

“The Drake Relays are one of the few chances I get to race close to home,” Koll said. “It means a lot to me to be racing in front of my family and friends, but also in front of such a supportive and excited community.”

Entering this year’s Relays, Koll and Caffrey will be coming from two opposite ends of the spectrum in searching for their first collegiate victories at the Drake Relays.

Koll has had a record-breaking season, setting the national collegiate record in the 10,000-meter run and winning a Big 12 championship in the indoor season, while Caffrey is coming off an injury that forced her to redshirt the indoor season. Caffrey has won events in two of her three outdoor meets.

Both admit that a Drake win would be a special moment in their careers.

“A win at the Drake Relays is something I have been wanting since I first started running,” Koll said. “In high school, I always looked up to the winners in awe.

“To be in the shoes of the people I once admired – it is something everyone dreams to achieve.”

Koll will have a great shot to make that dream come true when she competes in the 5,000-meter run Thursday night. Caffrey will also be expecting big things this weekend, although her injury may hamper her chances of winning.

“After last year, a collegiate victory was a goal for returning to Drake Relays this year, but I also didn’t plan on having a setback,” Caffrey said. “Because of it, my training has been altered to manage it. It unfortunately has not been the season I wanted it to be thus far, but I have to keep looking ahead. So I am going out there this weekend to perform the best I am capable of right now. I am going to go out there to put together the things I have been working on and to drop my time, and what happens will happen.”

If there is one thing to count on at the Drake Relays, it is the opportunity to see some of the world’s best performances by the nation’s top athletes and watch records fall, which Koll uses as motivation.

“The performances of all of the top collegiate and professional athletes were and always will be motivational to me,” Koll said. “Seeing Alan Webb’s mile last year was extremely inspirational. Every year I’ve gone down to the Drake Relays, I have seen old records broken and new leading marks and times, and those are memories I’ll always associate with attending.”

No matter what happens this year, Koll and Caffrey will look back with fond memories of the meet.

“It is the place where special memories were created that I will never forget,” Caffrey said. “The Drake Relays bring enthusiasm out of me that the other track meets don’t. It is going out on that blue track running in front of my family and friends and visiting with the officials that are there each year.”

Koll will compete in the 5,000-meter run on Thursday Night, while Caffrey will run the 100-meter hurdles preliminaries on Friday.