Oops...Portland Half Started EARLY with Top 3 Determined by Gun Time

The Portland Marathon has been an embarassment for such a running-focused city for many, many years. It had the same t-shirt design for 30 years, the worst race course in the US, and about 5 years ago the race director was arrested for fraud.

How would it be so difficult to start the half-marathon on time?!

Worth noting that the entirety of the last sentence of your first paragraph is in the past tense. You haven’t run Portland recently, have you?

Was he wrong?

Apparently, he tried; but the gun had already gone off early. Why defend this dumpster fire? Localism? Race director is your brother in law?

So stay in Oklahoma City or San Antone or wherever and don't go back. Who gives a damn?

So what. Different people prefer different places.

I think Portland is nice and would definitely live there.

On the other hand, I lived in Texas (supposedly the nicer parts), and would rather jump in front of a bus than to live there again. What a backwoods crap hole. If the politics aren't bad enough, the hatred amongst the citizen's is even worse.

Just avoid it if you don't like it.

I did hear that there was a new RD this year. But there has also been a lot of turnover in RDs since Les Smith. If you're unfamiliar with that:

opb.org

Former Portland Marathon organizer indicted on embezzlement charges

A grand jury has indicted the former organizer of the Portland Marathon on charges of embezzling more than $1 million from the nonprofit's coffers.

Open link

It is frustrating that this city/area has such a big running community, but is not well represented in this event. I don't think they should use this in their advertising: "Founded in 1972, the Portland Marathon is the premier marathon and half marathon on the West Coast."

There were some other issues with the event this year as well, but the screw up with the HM start was the worst. On a positive note, no one got stopped by any trains, which has been an issue in the past.

Ought to run a marathon running the opposite direction on the track at a college in San Antonio.

Here’s a Stumper: Portland is Hyper Local right? Well Brooksee the company that runs the Marathon is Utah based. So much for local! Make it make sense?!

They run the Vegas and Mesa marathons too.

I think it is funny that people down vote your posts because you are not a man.

happens all the time

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it was 7:07am.

Can you imagine any real runner just starting a race early? It blows my mind that someone who cares that little about running could be making a decision like that.

They apparently decided to move the start time up by 7 or 8 minutes like 7 or 8 minutes before it started. Ok, here are the details. This is wild. The half marathon was supposed to start at 7:15. They for some reason decided to start it at 7:07 at 6:59 am.

What a joke. That caused people to have to jump barriers to get on the course and for some of the half marathon runners to run into the back of marathon runners/

I don't think I ever was on a start line 7 or 8 minutes before it started.

I'd still like to know why they moved up in the first place. What was the advantage that they thought they'd get?

Here is an article on the fiasco:

oregonlive.com

Portland Marathon criticized by some participants for sloppy organization and chaotic operation

garnold

Critics on social media complained about the early start of the half marathon, mid-race course changes and lack of vehicular traffic control during Sunday's races.

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I organised a race recently where I found on race morning that some runners had spotted a 30min later start on one of the pages on my website that the big $$ web admin had not updated. I simply announced to them, relax , do your toilet stuff etc, we will wait for the later time. Sh*t happens, but I would rather cop the flak from people complaining about waiting on start (none) than from people missing start (which would have been many enough to cause PR damage).

Here is another article with a funny anecdote:

runningmagazine.ca

Portland Half Marathon starts eight minutes early, leaving runners scrambling - Canadian Running Magazine

https://www.facebook.com/marley.dickinson

"We all traveled to Portland to prepare for the 7:15 a.m. start to start it eight minutes early is unthinkable"

Open link

Chaston told Canadian Running that the early start completely threw him off. “I was tying my shoes about 300 metres from the start when I heard the announcer say, ’30 seconds to go until the half-marathon.’ I checked my watch in disbelief and found myself jumping 40-inch barricades to make my way there.”

The 25-year-old University of Portland student estimates he passed more than 1,000 people in the first mile. “I was constantly weaving between runners,” Chaston said. “It was annoying, and a little bit dangerous, as well.”

I wonder if that's a world record for most runners passed in a mile.

I ran the Portland half on Sunday. The bathroom line was ridiculously long and I wasn't able to start doing strides until 9 minutes before. I was on my second stride (200m from start) when they announced the half would start in 30 seconds. I figured it was a mistake, but jogged over anyway. The race indeed started and it took me 40 seconds to get to the line, behind 10 rows of people. With the half going off 8 minutes early, I not only had to pass the 10 rows of people ahead of me but ran into the back of pack marathoners very quickly. The first mile was chaos, weaving in and out of hundreds of people and having to run on the sidewalk to get around people. I ran the first mile in 5:30, and the winner passed me there, we were still probably around 30th place at that point. It was fine after that, but I couldnt tell who was actually ahead of me given some people started on time, and my legs didnt feel great not getting to finish my warm up routine and starting so suddenly.

At mile 12, we ran back into the marathoners and I had to weave through people again. Inexcusable for a race this size, easily the worst organized event I've done.