Members of the #3stripelife celebrate after member Hayden Swanson crossed the Windy River relay race finish line at Hood River Marina, above. They received their first place medals and stood for a photo, at left. Team members are, from left, Chris Duncan, Matty Merrill, Chris Cummings, Hayden Swanson, Evan Israel, and Zach Lockley.
Members of the #3stripelife celebrate after member Hayden Swanson crossed the Windy River relay race finish line at Hood River Marina, above. They received their first place medals and stood for a photo, at left. Team members are, from left, Chris Duncan, Matty Merrill, Chris Cummings, Hayden Swanson, Evan Israel, and Zach Lockley.
Members of the #3stripelife celebrate after member Hayden Swanson crossed the Windy River relay race finish line at Hood River Marina, above. They received their first place medals and stood for a photo, at left. Team members are, from left, Chris Duncan, Matty Merrill, Chris Cummings, Hayden Swanson, Evan Israel, and Zach Lockley.
Runners cross the finish line at the Port of Hood River.
Members of the #3stripelife celebrate after member Hayden Swanson crossed the Windy River relay race finish line at Hood River Marina, above. They received their first place medals and stood for a photo, at left. Team members are, from left, Chris Duncan, Matty Merrill, Chris Cummings, Hayden Swanson, Evan Israel, and Zach Lockley.
Jacob Bertram photo
Members of the #3stripelife celebrate after member Hayden Swanson crossed the Windy River relay race finish line at Hood River Marina.
Jacob Bertram photo
The Windy River relay finish line at the Hood River Marina.
Jacob Bertram photo
Medals await runners in the Windy River relay at the finish line at the Hood River Marina in Hood River.
Last weekend on a gorgeous and sun-soaked course in Hood River, hundreds of runners and walkers took to the streets to compete in the second annual Hood to Coast Windy River relay race.
Starting at the break of dawn Saturday morning at Hood River Marina, 50 teams of runners and walkers took off for a lengthy loop that took them through Parkdale up to Cooper Spur Road and back down the Mount Hood Highway towards downtown Hood River and back through the marina — 63.3 miles in total for runners and 42 miles for walkers.
Fifty teams of six participants competed in the race, which began at 5 a.m. on July 24 and lasted through the day.
Nine teams from The Dalles, Hood River, and White Salmon participated in the event.
The first team to cross the finish line in the men’s running division was Team #3StripeLifeHTC, a team of six Adidas staff workers from Portland. The team also won in 2019, their second time crossing the finish line in first place in their division. #3StripeLifeHTC finished with a 7.02 mile per hour average right around 1:30 in the afternoon.
“We love it down here (in Hood River),” said #3StripeLiveHTC team member Matty Merrill, “It’s the perfect place for a relay.”
In the women’s running division, team Long distance Relay-tionships finished with an 8.02 mile per hour average. In the walking division, team Toe Jammin’ picked up first with a 12 minute mile average.
Hood to Coast Relay CEO Jude Hubber said this is the second year the organization has put on a relay race in the Hood River area. With races also stemming from Mount Hood to the Portland area and “all over the world,” Hood to Coast branched out in 2019 to include the Columbia River Gorge in its array of events. This is the first time since 2019 the organization has put on such relay races that weren’t virtual.
“Words can’t describe how amazing it was … seeing faces that we haven’t seen in a long long time,” Hubber said.
“The fact that people were able to come together and succeed running through 85-degree temperatures is pretty amazing,” Hubber said.
The sun was shining all day last Saturday and despite the heat, teams made it throughout without a hitch. In 2019, the race was performed in the fall, which meant a vast array of weather conditions overlayed the course, ranging from rain to snow and everything in between.
Hubber said “100%” the organization will be coming back to host Windy River next year, and is surveying participants about the season the race should be held in.
For Hubber, the relay race is enjoyable because “the fact that running and walking is solitary, (it) can be a lonely sport. The fact that it can be made into a team sport is just phenomenal.”
Commented
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.