Every year I volunteer at the Portland Marathon, and this year was kind of an off year. They put a weird music tent in between the medical station and the aid station that narrowed the road. That meant we couldn’t see each other and the aid station couldn’t really see who was coming. We actually had a medical emergency that required an ambulance, and it was hard to hear over the music. The ambulance took forever to show up and while only two people needed non-emergency transport, the second person gave up after 40 minutes or so and took the trolley back downtown.

The reason I say it was disastrous isn’t due to anything we did or didn’t do. There were people dropping like flies this year and ambulances were called repeatedly. This is NOTHING LIKE CHICAGO. I understand those poor people had a marathon in the unseasonable heat that actually killed one runner, but I think we may have been close to losing some people today as well. And the weather was ideal for running. I’m just hoping it was bad luck this year, and not something like toxins in the honey they were handing out. I shouldn’t speculate like that, but it was weird how many people were going down.

The spacing of the runners was weird as well. I even missed seeing my sister as she ran by.

Well, after a nap I went to my buddy Matt’s open house. I’m kind of an oddball at parties like his, because I’m one of the few non-parents there. People with kids tend to hang with people with kids. I’ve known him since high school and being an outsider now isn’t much different than being an outsider then. That’s life.