Rain, cold temperatures and more rain — but that wouldn’t stop the annual Drake Relays from continuing.

It was the opposite of ideal weather for the 106th running of the Drake Relays on April 23 to 25, but the ISU men’s track and field team weathered the storm and competed in multiple events during the three-day event.

Iowa State had two events scheduled April 23 but didn’t participate in either of them and coincidentally, that would be the only day with cooperating weather.

The morning of April 24 brought pouring rain and made track conditions slippery despite the track officials’ best efforts to keep it dry.

Good weather or bad, it can’t be used as an excuse.

“It was fine,” said Jacob Aune, who competed in the 4×800 April 24. “The weather doesn’t make a difference because everyone else has deal with it.”

For one ISU athlete, the cold and rainy events were tough fights, not as an excuse, but because of geography.

When All-American Edward Kemboi, a Kenyan native, found out rain was in the forecast for the Drake Relays — it didn’t exactly thrill him.

“They told me it was going to rain and I’m not a rain guy, so I said, ‘uh oh,'” Kemboi said after his run in the 4×800 in which he brought his team from last to sixth place as the anchor. “I hoped that it would clear, but I saw that it was raining [that morning].”

The weather continued into the April 25 portion of the Drake Relays and with it came colder temperatures. That didn’t stop the team and Kemboi as he participated in one of the men’s track and field’s best events — the distance medley relay.

But even then, Kemboi knew that something was a little off with his performance.

“I don’t know what happened  [April 25]. I wasn’t as smooth as I was three or four races before,” Kemboi said. “I’m not used to this type of weather, but I did the best I could.”

The distance medley relay was in second place after the first two legs of Kemboi and Brandon Barnes but a push from behind sent the next runner, Patrick Peterson, to the ground and forced the team to settle for sixth place and a time of 9:47.84.

The distance medley relay broke the indoor ISU record at the Alex Wilson Invitational on Feb. 21, but who knows what would have happened if the fall didn’t happen.

“If he would have gotten the baton, it could’ve been a different outcome,” said Brandon Barnes, who ran the second leg. “[The collision] definitely kind of ruined some of the momentum we had going and it brought [the team] back a little bit — farther than we wanted to be.”

Iowa State sent its relay teams out in full force at the Drake Relays, stacking up the aforementioned relays with two others. Of those, the best finish came from the 4x800s and the distance medley relay’s sixth place finishes.

The other two relays, the 4×100 and the 4×400, finished last place in their respective events.

“Disappointing times,” said sprinter and hurdler Derek Jones of the relays’ performances. “It’s a quiet frustration because obviously being vocally negative isn’t going to help the situation at all. We are all yearning to what to do to get better because this is what we all love and are passionate about. It’s just sucks when you don’t run as fast as you want to.”

Barnes echoed that sentiment.

“I don’t think we are satisfied with it,” he said. “We came in, we wanted to compete better than we did, but things happen that happen. Obviously we didn’t get where we wanted to place-wise. We have to go back to practice and refocus and get ready for next weekend.”