As TriMet prepares to implement service cuts on Nov. 30, one rider has already proved that longer wait times won’t stop a determined transit superfan.

Marty Valentine, a Wilsonville middle school math teacher, became the first person to “speedrun” Portland’s MAX light rail system — riding to every station as fast as possible.

Transit “speedrunning” started in 1960 with the “Tube Challenge”, a Guinness world record on London’s underground system. In the 65 years since, it’s spread around the world to transit systems of all sizes, now generically called a “speedrun.”

Marty Valentine knew of transit speedrunning for years, but got the itch to do one when he realized summer break was coming to a close and he wanted one last adventure.

A transit speedrun is the perfect side quest for nerdy transit enthusiasts: people spend months tweaking computer algorithms or spreadsheets to calculate the fastest route without repeating too many stops. In computer science, this is called the “traveling salesmen problem” and is an algorithm taught in college curricula. It’s part urban adventure, part logistical puzzle.

Valentine completed his MAX marathon earlier this summer — 95 stations, five lines, and just over six hours on trains and buses.

Speedrunning is popular enough that an online community keeps track of “official” runs. They set the rules: take a picture of every station, keep a GPS log, and document any important transitions between trains.

“At every stop I had to get out and take a picture of the sign at the station,” Valentine said. “People were like, ‘What is this guy doing? What is going on?’”

It was an endurance test, both physically and logistically. “Three hours in, I had to use a bathroom … finally we found a Fred Meyer,” Valentine said.

His biggest challenge was the #33 bus connection he took between the end of the MAX Green Line to the end of the MAX Orange Line. It was part of the magic of the route — speedrun rules allow buses or walking between stations, so strategic buses can cut down repeats. When his bus arrived at the SE Park Ave station, he thought he’d made it when he saw the MAX Orange line train.

But the train departed before he could board. “In that moment, I knew we had lost our goal of a sub-six-hour run,” he said. “I saw it slowly driving away.”

Even so, he finished with the first official record for a Portland MAX speedrun. “Even though I missed the sub-six, I was still, at that point, the world record holder — which I held for about three weeks,” Valentine said.

Were his students impressed by the feat? “Absolutely not!” he said. “But I want to show them ... if there’s something interesting to you, you can nerd out about it and quantify it in a way that makes it cool.”

The math teacher said mapping his route was a puzzle of its own that took about a half-day of making spreadsheets. “Regardless of which route I took, I was spending about four hours and 45 minutes on transit, no matter what,” he said. “So the fun part is how can you shave down that time spending waiting at stations as much as you can? That’s really what becomes the fun math problem of it all.”

The experience also offered a fresh look at his adopted city. “I’ve lived here almost three years now and there’s so many parts of Portland that I’d never seen before,” Valentine said. “I’d never seen the cool views of Mount Hood when you take the red line up to the airport ... the Tilikum Crossing bridge over into downtown. It’s just a cool new way to see the city.”

Plus, considering it was 95 degrees on the day of his speedrun, “It was a fun way, cheap way to be in air conditioning the whole day,” he said.

Six challengers have since beaten his time. The current world record is 5 hours and 27 minutes, held by runner Overspeed1579. But Valentine hasn’t ruled out a rematch. “Not right now — middle of the school year, lesson plans to make — absolutely not,” he said. “Catch me in the middle of summer next year, who knows?”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/11/22/wilsonville-math-teacher-max-speedrun-public-transit-marty-valentine/