Greater Portland Half Marathon
Forest Grove, Oregon
Sunday, August 4, 2013

I race walked the Greater Portland Half Marathon in Forest Grove, Oregon on Sunday, August 4, 2013. The skies were cloudless, the wind was light, and the temperature varied from 65 to 75 degrees. The race had approximately 150 entries, which made it a lot smaller than I expected. The course was mostly on rural roads that had light traffic through farm areas where nurseries and vineyards were abundant. Turns and intersections had no volunteers after mile one; however, orange tape on the road and signs on the side marked the way. I am sure glad that I drove the course the day before the event, which I normally do. I also found when I picked up my race number than the map that I used that was published on the website and dated July 27, 2013 was changed. I am glad I went back out on the course to view the changes. I did not have any trouble following the course, but at least one participant did have trouble. Water/Gatorade stations were located approximately every two miles and I could not tell how many volunteers manned the stations as most of the stations had nobody by the time I reached them, even though my pace was much faster than needed to reach the cut off time. In fact, I finished the race more than an hour and a quarter before the time limit. There were tables with cups of water and Gatorade at three of the stations and a table with empty cups and bottles of water and Gatorade at the last station, meaning, I had to stop and pour my own liquid which meant my walking rhythm was interrupted and my finish time was slower by about one minute. This was disappointing as my finish time was less than a minute slower than my best time since my knee replacement operation. The event advertised than age group awards would be 3 deep; however, only first place was given an award in each age group. I was surprised; however, as they gave an overall award for walkers which I received for finishing 30 or more minutes in front of the rest of the walkers. As you can tell, the event could have used a little better organization. Despite the about mentioned, I still enjoyed myself and my trip to the far Northwest, USA.