Sallyportal: Madly Blogging Reed

Reed Runners Swarm Marathon

By Chris Lydgate ’90 on October 05, 2015 03:51 PM

THINKING ON THEIR FEET. Reed runners take Portland Marathon by storm. Photo by Maddy Wagar ’16

As many as 50 Reed students, alumni, professors, and allied life forms turned out for the Portland Marathon and Half Marathon yesterday, proving once again that Reedies think on their feet.

Biochem major Trevor Soucy ’18 led the Half-Marathon team (“The Running Jokes”) and placed fourth among male contestants with the blazing time of 1:23:37. Other top Reed runners in the Half included Chinese major Aaron Finsrud ’16 at 1:27:12, poli sci major Megan Keating ’17 at 1:42:15 and Prof. Michael Pitts [psych] at 1:44:03.

Biochem major Trevor Soucy ’18 placed fourth among male runners in the Half Marathon.

"To be honest, coming into the finish line I was a bit surprised by myself, but also very proud," said Trevor, who sliced almost 5 minutes from his time last year. "I knew I had done more training than last year, but I did not expect such a big improvement. It can be hard to balance life as an academic and life as an athlete, but performances like this make all the extra time spent logging miles truly worth it!"

Medical historian John Young ’15 led the Marathon Team (“The Long-Running Jokes”), crossing the finish line at 3:20:42. Math-physics major Will Holdhusen ’16 came in six minutes later at 3:26:10, followed by team captain and Reed bookstore manager Ueli “the Barbarian” Stadler at 3:37:38.

Many other Reed runners made a splash at the race, including John Cushing ’67, John Bergholz ’83, Jim Hutcheon ’90, Chris Lydgate ’90, Patrick Hayes ’91, Maddy Wagar ’16, Melaina Ecker ’16, Eleanor Pike ’16, Nick Paulino ’18, Sarah Richmond ’19, Gabriel Yeung ’19, Justin Chun ’19, Dayna Lamb, Bonnie Ingersoll, Dayspring Mattole, Stacey Kim, Todd Hesse (who ran carrying a giant Reed standard), Kevin Myers, and the inimitable Prof. Rao Potluri [math].

The event was the first time Nick Paulino ’18 had ever run a competitive race. Crossing the finish line, he says, his thoughts were a mix of "I can't believe I'm finishing/wow my legs are sore/I can't wait to eat a waffle at commons."

The Reed runners met up on the Quad on the day before the race for a special carbo-loading dinner and group photo. There was heated debate on the question of whether the psychology department could mount a successful challenge to the math-physics hegemony that has dominated Reed locomotion for the last several years, and some idle chit-chat about Max Weber.

This event marked the third year running that Reed runners have swarmed the course en masse, which means it is in danger of becoming an official Reed tradition. Pheidippedes would be proud.

Tags: sports, Portland,