A Very Poplar Run Highly Popular

The 1st Annual "A Very Poplar Run" was very "poplar" and "popular"! A huge success for a first time event, we had 170 finishers. It was a fundraiser for the Hermiston Agape House. Even though the weather was cool, the skies held throughout and even had some sun peek out at times. Parker Munck and Marquelle Barfuss won the 1 mile event, Rian Beach and Angie Treadwell won the 5K, and Jim Schmeits and Sara McDonald won the 10K. Complete overall and age group results can be found here or from the race page. Photos from the race can be found at the GreenWood Resources Facebook page or at the Tri-City Herald website. Hope to see you out there in 2012 among the poplars.

Tour de Frog Postponed until 2012

Sadly, the Tour de Frog is going to be canceled for 2011, and rescheduled for the spring of 2012. Mark your calendars for Saturday, May 5, 2012. Three of the event coordinators had conflicting items come up just very recently. That, and the fact that the Mac-Hi Technology students would be able to prepare better for the event with a spring-time date, it was decided to postpone the event until next May. We hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone too much and we hope to see you next year. If you have already registered for this year's TdF, you will be receiving a refund check in the mail.

Highway to Well Results

The Highway to Well continues to grow. Despite the hot weather, we doubled our previous turnout. We had a couple of glitches regarding routing runners the wrong way, but it still was a good day for everyone. You can click here for either the Age Group results or the Overall results.

Catherine Creek Classic Results

The Catherine Creek Classic was a huge success. Thanks to my buddy Steve Sheehy and his Union Cross Country crew, the event almost set an all-time attendance record. Everything went perfect, including the chip-timing system which was 100% accurate. You can click here for either the Age Group results or the Overall results.

Lostine River Run Results

A big thanks to all the participants of the Lostine River Run. You guys made it another resounding success. The weather was terrific, maybe a bit on the hot side. I got all the times corrected and the results are posted. You can click here for either the Age Group results or the Overall results.

A Couple More New Races

There are another two races that are now going to appear on the EOST website. The first is the Catherine Creek Classic in Union, Oregon. It's a great event that I've ran in several times. My good buddy and teammate from my EOU track & cross country days, Steve Sheehy, is the head coach of the Union XC team and he's put this race on for several years. This year, he's asked me to come on board to help with online registration and timing. I'm only too glad to help with this event. You won't find a more beautiful setting, especially with the half marathon course. Plus it's fast, and you can't beat that! Saturday, August 6th is the date so mark your calendars.

A second event that's coming this fall is a new sprint triathlon at Wallowa Lake. The organizing committee for this event has asked me to partner up with them to help provide timing and logistical help. Wallowa Lake is a beautiful destination spot anyway, but to be able to do a swim, bike, and run all in the vicinity of the lake itself is incredible. I'll have more information and a page dedicated to the race in the coming weeks, but mark your calendars for Saturday, September 17.

2011 EO River Run Recap/Results

Well, the 2011 EO River Run is now history and I must say that we had some great things happen and some not so great things happen. Let's start with the good. The turnout was amazing. Since we revived the race 2 years ago, it's grown steadily every year and this year we topped over 100 registrants. That's great! We had some great athletes participate. Every single overall winner and masters winners set course records. That's because both the 5K & 15K are new courses. Still, Jake Puzey ran a great 15K time of 52:44 and Hayden Scott ran a 17:11 5K, and Hayden is only 13 years old.

On the not so bright side, the rain didn't stay away. That made things at registration kind of mucky. Then my timing system went down due to lack of power. I had a generator, but after researching it after the race, the output from the generator is not clean enough for the timer to handle. Plus, I think my battery backup wasn't fully charged up. Thus, the whole thing croaked. Luckily, we were still able to time and I managed to piece together all of the times and produce results. Award winners will be notified and have their awards mailed out. Lastly, it came to our attention that we failed to put a volunteer at the Main Street crossing for the 15K runners. We meant to, but it was one of those things that we slipped up on. My apologies! I hope it didn't inconvenience too many runners. There are always things that we learn from putting on races, and today we certainly learned a few things.

Lastly, I want to thank all the runners who participated on behalf of the Pendleton Cross Country team and their coach, Nicole Stewart. We really appreciate the support to their program. The overall and age group results can be retrieved here.

2011 Cougar Fun Run photos online

Be sure to go to the Cougar Fun Run page and check out the link to photos that I took at the event. Feel free to download.

New Races and New Changes

There are two new events on the schedule. First of all, Let'er Tri & Let'er Du, Pendleton's only triathlon and duathlon, is returning on July 31. EOST will provide much of the support and chip-timing for this event. I am really excited to help bring this event back onto the schedule for Umatilla County. Another new event is going to be the Halloween Fun Run, which will be held in Echo on October 29. Proceeds from the Halloween Fun Run will go to help the Echo High School track team. They put on the Cougar Fun Run this year and had such a fun time doing it, they wanted to do another one in the fall.

One of the major changes is going to occur with the East Oregonian River Run on June 18. We are looking to expand the race, particularly the 1 mile event. With the help of the Pendleton Cross Country team and coach Nicole Stewart, we are looking at really expanding the 1 mile into a major kid's race. With that, Stillman Park is starting to look a little cramped. We are now looking at staging the event at Pendleton High School. The 5K and 15K courses will change slightly, but still essentially go along the river parkway. I'll fill you in on more details as soon as we get those details and permits sewn up.

Cougar Fun Run a Major Success

The Cougar Fun Run was a major success with a record turnout of 80 participants. Sixty-three runners and walkers particpated in the 5K, while 17 were in the 10K. The 5K drew some of the top area runners in their respective age groups. Rian Beach and Jen Puzey led the way with overall wins for the men's and women's races, respectively. I will have to do some research, but I think both ran course records. The 10K winners were Greg Schulberg and Lindsay O'Neal. Great job to all the runners and walkers and a big thank you from both me and the Echo track team. Results are posted on the Results page.

Chip Timing for Events

EOST is purchasing a chip-timing system. This will make the accuracy of recording the correct place and time for each participant much more accurate.

Chip-timing does away with having to pull tags and keep them in order. I know in several past events that there have been mistakes made in keeping tags in order. That has happened at least twice just in the past year.

Chip-timing also allows us to not have to punch a button to record the time as each runner crosses the finish line. Sometimes, with all the chaos that happens at the finish line area, the finish button will accidently get pressed twice or not at all, resulting in a shift of accurate times for individuals.

Hopefully, we can eliminate all of these issues and can look forward to having more accurate results and quicker results.

The chip timer will make its debut at the East Oregonian Butte Challenge. Jake Puzey and I have agreed to try the system for some of his events in the Hermiston area, along with the other EOST events.

New Website Design

After months for trying to figure out web programming, and two months of actually redesigning my site, I've finally completed it. My first attempts were made using canned templates and while they served their purpose, I always thought they were both user-unfriendly and sort of dreary looking.

Now, with this design, things look a lot more brighter and upbeat (to match my personality, of course) and I believe it's much easier to navigate. I hope you feel the same way.

And by the way, thanks for stopping by and checking out my site.

Runner's World Coach

Did anyone take a look at the December 2010 issue of Runner's World? If you didn't, check out page 40. There's coaching advice from a certain coach out of NE Oregon. Who could that be?

Yup, it's yours truly. I was contacted around August 2010 regarding answering a question about marathon race-pacing for possible future publication. I gave RW an answer to the question and, after a couple of clarifications, submitted my final answer.

After that I gradually forgot about it, thinking RW just filed it somewhere. Lo and behold, come late November when the December issue came out, much to my surprise, there I was. I don't know if this will lead to a future book and book tour, but this was quite exciting for now.