This year’s Eugene Marathon and half marathon finishers will be rewarded with a piece of history that may soon, itself, be history.
Pieces of the old Hayward Field have been used in Eugene Marathon medals for five years. Springfield High School woodworking teacher Scott Touchette has coordinated the production for the past three. He told KLCC runners might have even more reason to treasure the historic wood in this year's award. "This is probably the last year they’re going to be able to do that," he said. "There’s hardly any of it left, and what is left really doesn’t work well for this type of a project.”
Hayward Field’s east grandstand was built 100 years ago in 1925, and demolished in 2018 to make way for the new oval structure.
Touchette said finishers who get medals with a dense grain pattern are getting a bit of high-quality, old growth lumber, whereas, “If they (get one) where the rings or the lines, it’s called grain, are more spread out, that was a younger tree, and that was probably a repair at some point.”
Touchette said in the coming days, the Springfield High School track team will take over the wood shop to assemble the awards.
He said students did as much of the work as they could safely and accurately assign, and there was no shortage of work: The shop produced 8,400 wooden pieces, the best of which will be placed into the 8,100 medals the race expects to hand out.
The Eugene Marathon is April 27. As of late March, the Eugene Marathon and the associated 5K are sold out. The marathon’s website says there are spots available for the half marathon, and runners can register through the Run for a Reason charity teams to enter any of the events.
