FILE - Parker Haley carries the flag for 12 Hotties and a Squatty Potty to start the 2017 Hood To Coast relay.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
Thousands of people ran in blistering hot conditions on Friday for the annual Hood to Coast, one of the largest relay races in the world, with a small number having to be hospitalized due to the heat.
The nearly 200-mile race, which spans from the top of Mount Hood to the Pacific Ocean, coincided with some of the warmest temperatures the Portland metro area has experienced this year.
Temperatures hovered around triple digits on Friday, causing the National Weather Service to issue an extreme heat warning through Tuesday.
Dan Floyd, chief operating officer for Hood to Coast, said the race keeps a detailed log of all security and medical calls during the race. As of Saturday, the total call volume was the lowest it had been since 2021, he said, although he did not have a specific figure.
“It went better than I could have imagined,” Floyd said.
Related: Hood to Coast set to run through extreme heat warning
In preparation, the race stocked its exchange points with cooling vests and hired more first responders than in previous years. Organizers also advised participants to take it slow and walk when necessary.
“Going into this week, knowing that it was going to be hotter than normal, we definitely hired up specifically for that reason, because of the temperature,” Floyd said.
In Multnomah County, six runners were hospitalized with heat-related symptoms, according to officials from Multnomah County and Portland Fire and Rescue.
David Loftus lies on the hospital bed with heart monitors and oxygen tubes on his body, Aug. 22, 2025.
Courtesy of David Loftus
One of those runners was Portland resident David Loftus. It was his first time participating in Hood to Coast since 1992, and the conditions this year were much hotter.
He started his nearly 4-mile leg of the race around 3:00 p.m. Friday, the hottest time of the day, in east Portland. He said he “got cocky” and started to pass other runners. As he neared his destination, he began to feel wobbly.
“Another stranger, a runner, saw me wobbling and caught me before I fell,” Loftus said.
When he woke up, he was surrounded by paramedics and was en route to a local hospital. Speaking from his hospital bed Saturday morning, Loftus said he couldn’t remember the last quarter mile that he ran.
“I was training assiduously for 10 months, but I did not train for heat,” he said. “They stuffed ice packs under my arms and on my groin, and by the time we got to the hospital, the ice was all melted.”
Haggerty said the last time the race coincided with a major heat wave was 2016 — fewer than five people were hospitalized that year due to the heat.
It’s unclear how many runners, if any, were hospitalized in Clackamas County.
Loftus said he doesn’t know if organizers should have canceled or postponed the race.
“I think a lot of people thought it should be called off or postponed, but it’s such a massive effort, just a lot of expense,” Loftus said.
