Portland Marathon gives 1st place to wrong runner

pics?

(of you, we really need proof PDX girl is not wejo)

I somewhat similar thing happened to me one time. I ran a marathon and placed 3rd, but left because the award ceremony was going to be 4 hours later and I had things to do.

I politely asked for my award after warming down but they said it wasn't going to be given until the ceremony. Understandable. I left the race and emailed the RD offering to pay for the shipping. No response. I am not a psycho so I dropped and considered it over, but about 6 months later a friend from the area told me that the RD gave the 3rd place trophy to the 4th place finisher at the award ceremony. I am still listed in the results as 3rd place and no DQ or anything happened. I just didn't stay for the award ceremony and it apparently pissed off the RD.

Cool story, I know...

wow what a mess this race is. How much do they charge marathoners to run this thing?

MarathonMind wrote:

wow what a mess this race is. How much do they charge marathoners to run this thing?

Les takes each runner, turns them upside down, sees how much money falls out, and then asks for $90 more.

Don't let it go! Contact the race director and make him explain himself and why he is a DB.

It is not about the prize but he needs to learn how to run a race properly. Not just randomly making up his own rules.

If you were the fourth place guy who got the third place trophy, wouldn't you wonder why? Especially if the results show you as fourth. RD is a db, but the other runner isn't right either.

I am not a troll. He never responded to me and it has been 6 years, hahaha. I don't even remember his name. I honestly don't care anymore. I just remember being kind of surprised about it. I understand wanting people to stick around for the award ceremony, but I needed to get home and I was looking at a 4-hour drive. Plus, I felt like crap and needed to eat some real food.

Typically I would head back to a hotel room or something and then return, I have done that in the past, but this race was way out and I had checked out of the room early that morning. Not really a huge deal to me, but it was just weird that he gave it to the 4th place guy (why would 4th place even want it?).

Where is the outrage, letsrunners? No one care about this one?

I like how the second place runner referred to himself as elite. 6:xx pace and he calls himself elite?!? My head hurts.

Elite has no meaning wrote:

I like how the second place runner referred to himself as elite. 6:xx pace and he calls himself elite?!? My head hurts.

Not to mention the race was historically slow this year. The winner is almost always under 2:30 and the winning time this year would typically have been 6-8 place any other.

adjective

representing the most choice or select; best

2nd out of over 4,500 is elite

on that one day....... wrote:

adjective

representing the most choice or select; best

2nd out of over 4,500 is elite

...indeed. It's all relative. I'm waiting for the day no fast people show up so I can be elite.

Sounds like the race was poorly run. And the fanfare went to the cattle running the half.

It's a bit frustrating to finish a marathon and getting lost among the crowd of plodders from the half. It happens too often

What happened to the Portland Marathon? I thought it used to be in the tier of races just below NYC/Boston/Chicago in terms of organization, but this year makes me think it's no longer there. Maybe they couldn't deal with the weather?

Oregonian is reporting that a lot of marathoners were taken off course by half a mile in the first mile of the race. As if that weren't bad enough, the race manager said, "It's not a big deal," because it didn't impact the elites and possibly not most people chasing Boston times (though even this is in doubt).

Unbelievable that any race manager would cavalierly dismiss complaints this way and not apologize. He also wasn't apologetic about the award snafu and seemed to toss the finish line volunteers under the bus.

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2016/10/some_portland_marathoners_upse.html

Wow

nor jamin wrote:

Where is the outrage, letsrunners? No one care about this one?

I have so much rage. It's hard to convey over the internet, but trust me, it's there. I have been raging the hell out of my parents' basement for the past hour after reading this story.

nerdquest wrote:

It's a bit frustrating to finish a marathon and getting lost among the crowd of plodders from the half. It happens too often

I agree. I currently run only half-marathons and despite being a slow old lady I still run the half considerably faster than the world record for the full marathon, so I personally am never mixed up with the marathon finishers at the end. But I usually stick around to watch the marathon winners finish, and it always makes me sad that they have to shove their way through and around clots of half-marathoners walking and jogging to the finish. All races that have a combined full and half marathon should have a marathon-only lane for at least the last km or so of the race, so that the fast marathoners can be properly recognized.

People have taken notice.

It used to be a pretty big race - 7-8000 in the marathon. Now it's about 4000.

Time for someone to step up and put on a good fall marathon in PDX.