
Dave Clingan
My old Portland pal
Dave Clingan writes: “Greetings, milers! We are now less than 2 months away from the Portland Track Festival and the ninth annual Oregon Masters Mile at Lewis & Clark College on June 8. It may be hard to top last year’s field (9 runners under 4:30! and an M60 AR) but every year is a great race!
Race info is online, but here are the basics: Top 16 fastest runners (age 30 and up) will be accepted. Entry fee is $25 If you are capable of running 4:45 or faster, you
may register online. Medals and Nike shoes to top 3 finishers.
Prize money is
$200 First Place
, $150 Second Place,
$100 Third Place. Deadlines are May 28 or until the field has been filled. June 8 for provisional entry/waiting list.” For more info,
contact Dave.

14 Responses
This is the best outdoor mile in the country.
nice for the guys – no women! not that I would qualify, not could I travel anywhere these days – but just saying -in this day -still a bit sexist.
It seems I spoke presumptuously. What this race needs is more women. And last year there was only ONE Black guy. I’d like to see more Armenians and Apache’s and maybe one gay Filipino midget who walk with a limp and speaks with a lisp.
Mary-
In fact, the Portland Track Festival includes a high quality masters women’s race (3000m) which precedes the masters mile. It’s always an awesome field of exceptional masters women and the meet organizers deserve credit (not disapproval) for maintaining a strong commitment to gender equity. Both the men and the women masters athletes get the same prime time scheduling and earn the same cash prizes. If more high performance meets followed this example, there would be a lot more gender and age equity in our sport.
Here it is…any masters event is better than none….and there arent that many
a very snarky comment Nolan, hope it made you feel self-righteous.
How about equal rights for all, right Mary? No more sexism! So anyone who qualfies can run, no more of this seperate but equal bs, integrate everything including the record book. No men’s events no women’s events only open events. Do it all through school too, title 9 good bye. Make the women hang with the men and if they cannot they are gone!
Personally i am sick of people always asking for more when it is tough enough to get anything let alone more.
and calling this event & it’s promoter sexist when there is also a comparable women only event is just as self righteous as anything Nolan said.
As Dave mentions the Portland Track Festival does put on a terrific race for women. The fifth edition of the master’s women’s 3000 meters at PTF promises plenty of excitement. I expect last year’s winner Kris Paaso to return, and Sonja Friend Uhl has indicated her intention to toe the starting line. Carmen Troncoso and Cassandra Henkiel plan to travel from Austin, with Tania Fischer flying in from southern California. As thrilled as I am to see these speedsters descend on Portland, I am equally as happy to announce the return of two sexagenarian runners, Jeannie Groesz, and Candy Puterbaugh, both of whom put up age graded results of over 90% on their last race at PTF. There are still open spots, however, and any masters’ woman who can run under 13 minutes is welcome. I would also make exceptions for older women who are looking to put up a high age grade. I can be reached at Joanna.harper@portlandtrackfestival.com.
I would also comment that I see no reason for Dave to issue a “press release” for the women’s race. That is my job.
So to sum it up, there is and has not been any bias in the Portland meet towards male races. But I think most of us knew that- including Nolan, who was just having a litle fun. The Portland region has done a great job having both masters mens and womens races since I’ve been competing. So maybe Mary was the snarky one!
To be fair, when Joanna organized a women’s masters meet at PTF, she polled women runners (at least locally) as to which event they would prefer – mile/1500, 3k or 5k. The 3k won out, so that’s why there isn’t a masters women’s mile.
I wonder if that is local bias since we didn’t have any standout local masters women milers at that time. I know I voted 3k.
Mary, I know you are recovering from a broken elbow, but if you do travel out to the meet at some point, let me know and I’ll come cheer for you!
Dave and Joanna deserve far more credit than they receive to bring the Master’s distance races to the PDX Festival. The fields assembled, especially the past 2-3 years are better than a World Masters race (in my opinion), and the friendship us old folks create from this event wouldn’t happen without them.
Many thanks to Craig Rice for adding us to the meet. See you all next week!
Shoes?!?!?! I better get with it this year…
Lv Neverfull Gm As Diaper Bag
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