Blood, sweat and seizures weren’t enough to stop The Dalles Special Olympics athletes from crossing the finish line. At the Special Olympics Oregon Regional Athletics Competition at Clackamas High School on July 30, eight athletes from The Dalles competed in track and field events such as running, jumping and throwing. The competition is for athletes with cognitive disabilities.
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.
The 21st annual Jumpstart Elementary Cross Country races are fast approaching and more than 300 boys and girls from kindergarten through fifth grade are expected to join in on the fun, starting at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 26, at Sorosis Park.
Just two meets into the 2016 campaign and South Wasco County senior and defending 1A state shotput champion Ellis Rager already looks poised for a repeat run at the top spot. Rager had a first-place throw of 46-feet-1 inches, a career-best and he tacked on a distance of 120-08 for top honors in the discus event to lead the Redside boys at the Culver Invitational Wednesday in a six-team track meet.
Only 0.5 percent of the U.S. population has run a marathon, but anyone can do it. I’m proof of that. On Sunday Oct. 4, I ran the Portland Marathon. It was my second 26.2 mile race and I finished in 3 hours, 30 minutes and 27 seconds, which placed me 474th out of 5,710 runners. And I’m nobody special. I’ve always loved sports and not long after I could walk I was throwing a baseball in the yard with my dad, but no one would ever call me an athlete or for most of my life a runner. I wasn’t on the track or cross country teams in high school. In those days, to me, running was nothing more than a punishment.
