Last Friday, the RAC and Southern Adventures hosted the ninth annual Iron Eagle Challenge (IEC) with many obstacles and mystery challenges to test participants.

The course traveled through the Georgia Southern University campus and required participants to work in teams while biking, running and canoeing. Some of the challenges required participants to use their wit and intelligence.

The mystery challenges are different every year. Student members of the RAC staff come up with new mystery challenges and test them out themselves. This year one of the mystery challenges was a dive into the sand to look for puzzle pieces, making the IEC a mental challenge as well as a physical one.

“The thing that slowed us down the most was one of the mystery challenges, the first one, but after that we made up a lot of ground,” Kyle Murphy, second year graduate student, said.

Murphy and Dylan Hightower senior civil engineering won the men’s heat.

There were three heats including men, women and co-ed groups who all came out in their best team attire, from Batman and Robin to minions from the movie “Despicable Me.”

Each team added its own individual spin on team names including the minion team, also known as “It’s so Fluffy I’m Gonna Die,” which was made up of Allison Gerdes, senior nutrition major, and Kiley Nave, CRI staff member. The minions came striding into the finish bathed in mud to win the second heat for women.

“I’ve gotten third place and second place but I wanted to get a first place and Ally and I secured that gold medal,” Nave said.

The Iron Eagle Challenge truly tested these students both physically and mentally with a challenging and exciting course for all of the competitors.