Finishing what she started
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REXBURG. IDAHO
A 32.7-mile surprise awaited Linnea Fletcher upon her return in April from a mission to the Philippines.
She attended BYU-Idaho and volunteered as a student director in the university's Fitness Activities program prior to her missionary service. In that capacity she had proposed the idea of staging a relay race for students and faculty from the Idaho Falls Idaho Temple to the Rexburg Idaho Temple.
"We were revamping the program and they wanted some new ideas and some new activities that we could do," she recalls. "I sat down with my family at a family home evening and I told them about it. We had a family council brainstorming session, threw out a ton of crazy ideas, and [the relay race] was one of the ideas that came up out of the family home evening."
Fitness Activities coordinator Doug Stutz shepherded Linnea's relay-race idea through various stages of administrative approval and logistical groundwork while she was in the Philippines.
"I wanted to do something here at BYU-Idaho to get our students and employees involved, to get them out and get them fit," Brother Stutz said. "I went back and thought of Linnea's idea of the temple-to-temple relay and thought that probably would work. It's about the right distance for a college-aged group, and it could cater to people who are not serious runners — the distance would be about four miles (per runner)."
Upon her return to school one week after her mission ended in April, Brother Stutz passed the project's reins off to Linnea. More than a year of planning finally came to fruition Sept. 19 when BYU-Idaho staged the first Temple to Temple Relay. More than 300 students and approximately 65 employees populated 51 teams. The course stretched 32.7 miles from the temple parking lot in Rexburg to the temple parking lot in Idaho Falls.
"We started in the morning at about 8 o'clock," Linnea said. "We had teams staggered at different times depending on their 5-km pace time. They started at the temple parking lot, at the stake center there, and each team had two, four or eight runners.
"Each team had a team name and a team captain. We ordered shirts and had different colors for the teams if they preregistered on time. And then once they got to the finish line, the last person that came running in would be joined by their whole team so they could cross the finish line together."
With its large turnout and positive reception, the first Temple to Temple Relay likely won't be the last.
"It's a lot of work," Brother Stutz said. "It would require some students who have some of the same vision and passion for it that Linnea had to make it something that would be successful. But yes, I would anticipate it would be something we'd want to do in the future."
