If Oregon’s world-famous Hood to Coast relay race gave a prize to the team having the most fun, it’d be hard to beat the Local 280 Power Rangers.

Smiling and goofy even in scorching heat, members of the Salem, Ore., local couldn’t contain their joy — or union pride — as they took turns running the 196-mile route from the Cascade mountains to the Pacific coast.

With logo T-shirts, blinged-out vans and an “IBEW 280” lightning-bolt sign carried on a pole, they were unmistakable as happy and proud union electricians.

“You’re having a blast the whole way, more than a blast,” said Max Fleming, a fourth-year apprentice who organized the first Local 280 team in 2023 and is its exuberant spokesperson. “There’s so much camaraderie, so many laughs, so much fun happening.”

And that’s the goal. “We’re not out to race,” Fleming said. “That’s for the professional runners on teams like Nike’s. We’re building friendships. Instead of just seeing someone at work, now you know that person. You’ve got history with them. By the end of it, you’re all best friends.”

The 12-person team included 10 members of Local 280; a Portland Local 48 journeywoman who filled a late vacancy; and an executive at EC Electric, which sponsors the Power Rangers along with the Salem local.

“We couldn’t do this without their help,” said Fleming, an EC Electric employee, noting that entry fees have risen to nearly $2,500 per team, with many other associated costs for the world’s largest relay run.

Local 280 Business Manager Lynn McDonald said it’s a worthy investment. “I’m super proud of them,” he said. “It’s great that they’ve joined together in something that promotes physical fitness and camaraderie and brotherhood.”

Eric Davis, an EC Electric regional vice president whose career began as a Local 280 apprentice, marveled at his teammates’ passion and energy, and at the bonds they form.

“You see people in a different element,” said Davis, who is still a member of the local despite being outside the bargaining unit. “You’re spending all this time in a van with them and sleeping out in a field under the stars. You’re giving each other encouragement and getting to know each other on another level.”

Some 12,600 runners from 40-plus countries took part in the 2025 event. At staggered times in the wee hours of Friday, Aug. 22, the first runners set off from Timberline Lodge, elevation 6,000 feet, on the south slope of Mount Hood.

Each runner typically covers three of the relay’s 36 legs, with handoffs roughly every six miles. From the ski resort, they navigate wilderness in the dark, weave through Portland, run up and down the Coast Range mountains and finish on the beach at Seaside the next day.

Every scenic mile runs through the Power Rangers’ backyard, the jurisdiction of Locals 280 and 48. The most elite runners this year sped through it in about 18 hours. The IBEW team was just as proud to clock in at 35:10:43.

But there was one great equalizer: No one escaped the record heat that soared to 102 degrees the first day.

“It felt like a blow dryer in my face,” fourth-year apprentice Robin Thomas said. “But it was so great to see how supportive everyone was — squirting us with water, giving each other wet towels, people offering us water along the way.”

Thomas ran last year when highs barely hit 80 and was geared up to run in 2023, when she helped Fleming and journeyman Teddy Patana organize the team. Instead, she was in a hospital bed recovering from emergency open-heart surgery at age 33.

“Robin is our miracle girl,” said Rich Lofton, a veteran Local 280 member and superintendent at EC Electric who drove one of the team’s two vans.

Riders used GPS to keep track of their runner, especially on legs that included off-road trails. “It was almost dangerously hot,” Fleming said. “We were watching the map, making sure the person was still moving.”

An experienced runner who served in the Navy and did auto body work before joining the IBEW, Fleming said he “was trying my best not to faint.”

“I’ve run in Arizona in the summertime, and this was equal to that, if not a little bit more hardcore,” he said.

Temperatures cooled Friday night and were in the low 80s when Thomas finished the final leg Saturday afternoon in a pink Power Ranger jumpsuit — a token of Fleming’s whimsy that’s become a tradition for the last runner.

“There were lots of people on the beach, and one team was all dressed up as superheroes,” Thomas said. “When they saw my costume, they formed a tunnel for me to run through.”

EC Electric provided the vans to ferry runners between legs and helped create the “Local 280 Power Rangers” logo for T-shirts and swag, including giant magnets for the van. Members shared hundreds of smaller magnets to trade or affix to other teams’ rides.

Navigating the route behind the wheel can be as challenging as running it, and Fleming makes sure that each van has a primary driver and backup.

“It’s organized chaos — 1,000 teams, 12,000 runners, people everywhere,” Lofton said. “One van was constantly picking up runners, and the other was trying to get food, water and some rest in.”

But he had a ball. “I got to hang out in a van for 36 hours with my kind of people — wiremen,” he said, while also noting with pride that four of the six runners in his van were wirewomen.

Fleming is looking ahead to other relays in the West, possibly in partnership with other locals. His enthusiasm is boundless, from his love for the runners and drivers, to the safety precautions they take, to hand-fabricating the Local 280 sign that he held high in the air.

“I’m ridiculous about it,” he said with a laugh. “I wear silly stuff. I’m super positive, I cheer anybody I’m passing. It comes naturally, because when you run, you get happy.”