Our Family Fun Walk arrow coloring contest winners have been chosen:
Mackenzie Mills, age 4
Helen Koeppen
They will receive a pedometer and you can see their arrows and all of the arrows entered on the Family Fun Walk route today!
For 2009, marathon finishers receive the Discovery Walk medal award on a red neck ribbon which says Marathon 26.2 2009.
All pre-registered marathon participants will receive a certificate with their name on it denoting they have completed a marathon. They are printed and just waiting for you to cross the finish line!
Those who register for the marathon during the registration hours on Friday or Saturday will get a certificate, but it will have a space to write in their name rather than being printed with their name, as we have done in past years.
These changes are in response to the poll we took of our marathoners last year. They strongly wanted an award with the year on it and that said they had done a marathon. Previously we had patches, but our core committee marathoners and marathon finishers overwhelmingly said they don't wear or display patches, but they would value something different with the award. We think most marathoners will love this bold neck ribbon and wear or display their medal with pride.
We didn't previously do personalized certificates because our finish area was already bogged down with giving out 12 different awards based on years walked. Now that everyone gets the same award except the marathoners, we hope the lines go faster. We can take the extra time to go through the stack of certificates to give each pre-registered marathoner their personalized certificate.
We can't guarantee that we'll have a working printer and computer operator at the finish to produce certificates for those who register on Friday or Saturday, but that may happen as well.
We're sorry for those who will miss the patches, but our designers and quartermaster and budget are very happy to do without the extra hassle.
Triathlon finishers will likewise get a Triathlon ribbon on their swim medal rather than a try-athlon patch as they did in the past. Our quartermaster says the ribbons are buried in the box of medals and so we don't have a photo of them yet. But we believe they really are there.
Mail-in registration for the 2009 Discovery Walk Festival is closed, you can still register online through April 20, and you can always register at the event.
Day of event registration is open Friday April 24 from 2 pm - 6 pm, Saturday April 25 6:30 am - 12 pm, and Sunday April 26 7:30 am - 12 pm. You can ALWAYS register at the event!
Location: Vancouver Hilton Hotel, 301 West 6th St., Vancouver, WA USA 98660. This is registration, packet pick-up, start and finish for our walks, and bikes, and registration for the swims (shuttle provided to and from the Hough Pool).
Team registration: You can register online as a team or register together at the event at the Group Registration Table. If you have the names of your team members but are unable to register online, email the registrar by April 22 with the team information and we can be prepared for your team and make the day-of-event registration go faster. Team roster sheet (note that at the event your members will have to fill out and sign start cards, so it's best to use this sheet in advance and email it to the registrar, it is of limited use to bring it to the event)
Our registration numbers are trending the same as for 2008, so it looks like another good year.
If you have questions about your registration, email the registrar.
We've posted overview maps for Saturday and Sunday that show all of the walking routes each day.
See: http://www.discoverywalk.org/iml/maps.html
These are for overview purposes only. On the day of the event, you will receive a detailed map and written instructions specific for the distance you are walking. Our routes are also marked with color-coded arrows and ribbons.
Our t-shirts this year feature our 2009 logo of the family walking. The shirts for the public will be in a soft meadow green. The volunteer shirts will be in purple. We have updated our CafePress.com online store where you can order a variety of articles with the new logo, including toddler and youth sizes. If you order from CafePress.com, the items will be shipped directly to you.
The Discovery Walk Festival will have a new award system in place in 2009. This new system is aimed to please our walkers. It will cost us more than the previous system, but should also reduce the time in the finish lines and send walkers home with a new medal/ribbon combination each year.
We want every walker on Saturday and Sunday to take home a medal award. Our quartermaster Krista loves awards and especially loves wearing a medal on a neck ribbon to work after a big event. For this year, we found a new medal supplier who was able to give us a good price for a lovely cloisonne medal on a neck ribbon that lists the year 2009. For those completing the marathon distance, their neck ribbons will say Marathon 26.2 2009. For those completing the triathlon, their swim medal will be on a neck ribbon that says Triathlon.
In previous years, those who walked both Saturday and Sunday got a certificate for the second day, but only get a medal on the first day. This year they will get a #2 pin to add to their medal and neck ribbon award they got on Saturday.
Our previous system gave out small number pins (and no medal) to returning walkers, with a new medal every 4th year. The plan was for them to add the numbers to the medal they earned the first year, 4th year, 7th year, 10th year, etc. We will have the small number pins available for those who have earned them and want them, but you will have to request them at the Sales booth rather than at the finish. This excludes the #2 pin, which we are using as stated above as the second-day award. We will not be handing out the medals you would have gotten for the 4th, 7th or 10 year, as we are using those now and in the future as awards for the swim.
This year, our Friday Mayor's Walk Award will be our Peace Medal coin, which we have used in previous years but have not used for the past three years. On one side is a reproduction of the Corps of Discovery (Lewis and Clark) medal they used as friendship offerings to the Native Americans along their journey. The reverse side shows our Discovery Walk globe logo.
We will no longer have a unique patch for each year. We have a stock of our club patch and the IML Walking Association patch, as well as the yearly patches from the past 12 years for those who want to purchase a patch.
We know change is difficult and there will be those who will not like these changes. But we believe that our first, second and third time walkers will like this award system better. It should be noted that this is not a cost-cutting move. In fact, this new system will cost us more. But it will reduce administrative time and time in the finish line, which should ultimately please the walkers, the volunteers and the registrar.
Friday Mayor's Walk: will include the new Vancouver Land Bridge, which connects the Columbia River to the Historic Reserve and celebrates the land, the river, and the people.
Saturday Walks: New routes for all distances. The 5K route, which also serves as the Family Fun Walk, will enjoy a walk through the Vancouver Farmer's Market and then down the Columbia River Renaissance Trail to the Princess Ilchee Statue and back.
The 10K route will follow the 5K route for the first half, then join the 21K and 42K route at our Super Checkpoint at Marshall Center where you can enjoy a Germany theme food and fun.
The 21K route and 42K routes enjoy local greenways and neighborhoods. The 42K route is a full circle route that only shares its first 10K and last 10K with the 21K route. Both converge at the Marshall Center for a fun Super Checkpoint before your final return to the finish.
Sunday Walks: New routes for all distances. We have eliminated using buses. You will start and end your walk at the Vancouver Hilton Hotel. All routes visit a Super Checkpoint at the Washington State School for the Blind.
Bikes: We have added a 15K route and will also have a 10K family route available for those who need an even shorter route.
We should have overview maps available before the event. Each walker and biker receives a detailed map and directions at the start. Our routes are also marked with ribbons and arrows.
We do not have 32K routes this year. That distance offering was only sparsely used and we need to put our trailmarking and sweeping teams to better use on the other routes. It takes about 4 hours to mark each 10K of trail properly. We are always recruiting experienced trail markers.
The Discovery Walk Festival welcomes our three returning presenting sponsors:
Cascade Heart presents the Friday Mayor's Walk
Realvest Corporation presents the Saturday Lewis and Clark Walk
Veolia Water presents the Sunday Lt. Broughton Walk
In these tough economic times, sponsorships are shrinking and that is difficult for events such as ours which endeavors to keep entry costs very low while providing an award and a full service event. Our goal is to promote healthy lifestyles and international friendship.
We want as many local/regional walkers to attend as possible, so we have a very minimal registration charge - and free for children age 12 and under. Our team entry fee is only $5 per person as we want community clubs, groups, and families to encourage each other to get out and walk!
We rely upon sponsorships and grants to fund our publicity budget and the extras we provide at the event. We are very grateful for our generous returning sponsors. We seek new sponsors to allow us to spread the word about our event and bring even more people our introduction to healthy living.
We've opened up online registration for 2009. Mail-in registration has been available, but many people prefer the convenience of registering online.
Our Earlybird rate is only $5 per event. That includes the award for everyone and (if you have their record books) IVV and IML credit. The Earlybird rate lasts until Nov. 1.
After November 1, the rate goes up to $8 per event. After March 15, it goes up to $10 per event.
You can always get the lowest rate by rounding up your friends and forming a team! The team rate remains $5 per event through the day of event. Get your club members together, grab everyone from the neighborhood, church, or family reunion and bring them to the Discovery Walk Festival!
Register now online or by mail.
The photos from the 2008 Discovery Walk Festival are now online:
After 12 years of hosting the Discovery Walk Festival, our team of volunteers knows that the only sure thing is that something won't go as planned. We had some wonderful surprises and some unpleasant ones. We take them all in stride to be able to improve the event in coming years.
We apologize for the breakdown of the ice cream truck for Saturday. The sponsor providing the truck and ice cream is likewise disappointed. My personal motto is to underpromise and overdeliver (don't anybody there is ice cream until it is being handed out!) But when a sponsor commits to a giveaway they expect pre-publicity of it as part of the package.
Our committee has long been planning to re-do the Sunday walks to eliminate busing the long distance participants. For the past two years we have enjoyed showcasing the lovely WSU campus and Salmon Creek Greenway, which only busing would allow. But this year the buses we contracted for did not arrive. We went to Plan B and used the swim shuttle to take the few 33K participants to the starting point, or gave them the option of doing the 10K route three times. But our shuttle van couldn't accommodate the numbers we knew we had for the 21K. So we asked those participants to circle the 10K route twice.
This distressed some participants who were looking forward to a unique route. As a committee of walkers ourselves, we know that the solution was not ideal. But it allowed us to provide an instantly available marked and mapped route complete with checkpoints. Our lesson has been learned, we won't be relying on buses in the future. We will be redesigning the Sunday route to feature other lovely areas of Vancouver. We apologize to those who were disappointed.
One gentleman made lemonade out of the lemon by circling the 10K route 4 times and thereby completing a marathon distance 2 days in a row - a personal goal for him in his 70th birthday year. One of the groups of Japanese on the 33K route took a wrong turn and made the route into a marathon distance by accident. They were happy - they preferred to do the longer distance!
A happy surprise were the number of families and teams. Our Family Fun Walk participation went up 65% and we had almost twice the number of teams registered as last year. The good weather probably contributed to these successes.
We are looking forward to 2009. We have ideas brewing to improve the award system, routes, and entertainment. We can always use new people on our Core Committee to bring new ideas and work to implement them.
