Walk-A-Mile-For-Kyle

Open Meadow Alternative Schools alumni and supporters will walk in the Portland Marathon on Sunday, October 5 to honor the memory of a former Open Meadow student.

Join the 6.2 mile memory walk, Walk A Mile For Kyle, to honor the life of Kyle Robert Kepic, a former Open Meadow student who got caught up in using heroin as a young adult and tragically lost his life at the age of 24. The walk will also help to raise awareness of at risk youth and drug addiction, and benefit Open Meadow.

How to Get Involved

• Register for the walk at www.portlandmarathon.org. Click on “Register Online,” click on “Register Now,” select 10K Mayor’s Walk, select Walk A Mile For Kyle Team and enter team password “openmeadow.”

• Entry Fee - $20 Adults

• Start time: 9:30 on Sunday, October 5

• Walk begins at N. Harvard & Willamette Blvd near the University of Portland and ends at SW 3rd & Salmon – Join us for all or part of the walk.

Donate to Open Meadow in Kyle’s memory

• Donate online when you register at www.portlandmarathon.org.
• Donate online at www.openmeadow.org and receive a receipt.
• Donate by writing a check to Open Meadow Alternative Schools and remitting it to Open Meadow, Dept. W, 7621 North Wabash Ave., Portland, OR 97217

Open Meadow is a nonprofit educational organization that last year served more than 700 youth at risk of disconnecting from school and those who had already dropped out. Open Meadow’s mission is to educate youth in small, relationship based programs that emphasize personal responsibility, academics and service to the community.

For more information about Walk A Mile For Kyle, please contact Josh Monda, Team Captain, at jmonda@richardjamesinc.com or 503-810-4596.

Mid-Summer Olympic Tri (Blue Lake)

Raced at Blue Lake sunday. Although the field only contained about 200 people the top 10 or so was pretty competitive. This was my first time racing the Olympic distance on the course and I was eager to see how my swim and bike fitness were coming along. I was given the instructions to "time trial" the swim and bike and then just let my running legs do what they do.
Swim- 24:04- New PR for me. I started in the "elite" wave for the first time. I figured it would pobably force me to push the swim more than i am comfortable. Felt pretty good on the swim. Avg hr was 177 though. 16th place out of the water
T1- 1:47- decent time. HR avg'd 192 though. my heart rate was really running high all day
Bike- 1:00:45- this was not supposed to happen. with the effort I put out (181 avg hr) and the conditions and flatness of the course, i should have been somewhere between 58 and 59 minutes. It didnt help that 3miles in I turned the wrong way at one turn and lost about 15seconds. Once Trevor Davies and Bill Thompson passed me (they started the race in the wave after mine, 1min back) I knew i was having an off day, even though these guys are strong strong riders, i should have held them off for more than 7 or 8 miles.
T2- 1:18-
Run- 38:25- 4th fastest....not feeling well on the run. HR was at 180-185 the whole time and i was running 6:11's. I was not exhausted but could not get my legs turning over any faster and ended up running well off my 35:00 10k time i ran at world in June. Chris Bell started out the run with me and pulled away after 1.5miles to finish 3rd overall.
Grant Folske won the race with some fantastic splits and was the only guy to go under 2hrs in the race. He is looking really strong.
i finshed in 6th place overall in 2:06:19
Oh well we all have our off days. Back to training now and getting ready to Defend my Hulaman title on Aug 17th!!