31/50 - Bend Marathon

Of all places to have to revisit to claim a sub-3-hour marathon in each state, there are worse places than Oregon. So what went wrong? Nothing. But we'll get to the race in a bit.

Last time I was in Oregon some 13 years ago it rained... The whole damn time. My memories include a beautiful coastline, not being allowed to pump my own gas, and hearing about this grade school in Portland that was converted into a hotel / bar / adult playground that I didn't get a chance to visit. It's time to remedy that. But first, beer.

Oregon is the beer capital of the U.S. and if you've been reading this blog you know that it's been about beer and food first and running second. Breakside Brewery in Portland was a good start before heading over to The Kennedy School to check into our "classroom." Imagine that your old grade school was converted into a destination hotel: each room is an old classroom with the original chalkboard still adorning the wall, most of the furniture and photos lining the hallways are from the mid-20th century, the cafeteria has become a brewpub, the boiler room a bar within a labyrinth of pipes, the detention room a whiskey and cigar bar, the honors classroom a smoke-free bar playing only classical music, the auditorium a movie theater, and the teachers' lounge now a beautiful outdoor heated pool.

I always liked grade school.

Tempting as it was to spend Friday afternoon and evening earning extra credit at The Honors Bar, there was much of Portland to explore. The Cascade Brewing Barrel House, the Pacific Northwest's pioneers of sour beer, was a nice patio spot with a good apricot sour beer. I hadn't been off the plane for 3 hours and I was drunk. We alternated beer stops with coffee stops because Oregon also happens to be known for its coffee scene. Oh and look, it's Powell's Books! Originally a Chicago bookstore, this location in Portland takes up an entire city block and claims to be the largest independent book store in the world. The books-I-have-to-read queue just got longer and I think I lost my wife somewhere in this building - if you find her, I'll pay for shipping to send her back home. The Chicago location was her old hang when she was attending University of Chicago, but the Portland store is on a whole new level.

I don't know why I bothered but I felt like I needed to stand in line for donuts at the original Voodoo Doughnut. I love donuts. I do. But these have always been over-the-top, even for me. I did start a running club using their maple bacon donut as our mascot so I figured I had to give it another try. Meh. Soon it was back to The Kennedy School to wash away my disappointment with more beer (and tater tots).

OK, the Raspberry Beret Prince tribute donut was pretty righteous.

The Alberta Arts District of Portland is rad. We grabbed breakfast at Pine State Biscuits before a scenic drive to Bend. Biscuits are the new donuts, mark my words. And unbeknownst to us until we returned to this area on our way out of town, my favorite brewery of this entire trip was hidden behind this storefront.

The drive to Bend can be scenic or really scenic. We chose the really scenic route that takes you along the Columbia River on the U.S.'s first scenic highway - US 30 - offering sweeping views of this majestic river and frequent stops for short hikes and waterfalls. In the town of Hood River you'll leave the river road and travel along the north and east sides of Mt. Hood for arguably one of the prettiest drives in all of Oregon. The road has several wineries, cider houses, and fruit stands making for a leisurely drive into Bend. We stopped at the first cider house we saw, Fox Tail Cider, and enjoyed a game of ladder golf with Mt. Hood looming over an apple orchard in the background.

Columbia River view from The Vista House at Crown Point.

Multnomah Falls. But don't bother hiking to the top. Trust me.

Mt. Hood from near Fox Tail Cider.

Downtown Bend is reminiscent of most ski towns: Main St., quaint shops, and outdoorsy folks. We stayed at the Lara House B&B overlooking Drake Park and Mirror Pond along the Deschutes River in downtown. Yes, this is home to Deschutes Brewery but since we already stopped in the Portland location and I knew they would be at the post-race party, we opted for a pre-race dinner at 10-Barrel Brewing. I can see why Anheuser-Busch bought them; the IPAs and food were incredible!

Race morning - it was unseasonably cool but that made for fine running weather. The field had about 300 marathoners and 1,100 half marathoners. There's always a ringer or two in these small marathons. Here we had Max King, a local who's made a name for himself in the ultra running world. Max has the Ice Age Trail 50-mile race course record, the only ultra I've done, besting my time by almost 2 hours... And I thought I did well there.

The course volunteers routed us the wrong way after 2 miles (luckily Max got us back on track). I began to realize the altitude and hills might make a sub-3-hour race difficult. Or maybe it's because I didn't have a coffee this morning. Or maybe it's because The Wife tagged along for this one. Or because she made me hike to the top of Multnomah Falls the day before. After reaching the highest point on the course at mile 15, I thought I could make up for it on the downhill but there just wasn't enough of it and I took a pretty nice fall on a trail section. Ouch! I managed 4th place in 3:02:52. I'll let you review the Garmin data here. In any case, the mixture of trail and road course made for a beautiful tour of Bend and I'm glad I did the race.

Crux Fermentation Project (or brewery in unscientific beer-nerd speak) made for a great way to reclaim those 3,000+ calories I left on the course. They had a few great beers, though not as many sours as we were expecting, and a really solid grilled cheese. Then more coffee, then more beer... A couple of locals (at a coffee shop) recommended Spork for dinner. This will go down as one of the better meals we've had in a long time (The Wife says Top 5 ever). These globally-inspired (Latin America, Africa, Asia) dishes once peddled from an Airstream trailer are worthy of your attention and deserving of the numerous accolades they've amassed. Plus, we got three entrees for $34. I couldn't eat or drink another thing. Ok, maybe some Marionberry ice cream. Goodnight.

We drove to Sisters, OR on Monday morning for coffee after our morning coffee on our way to another brewery (before getting coffee). You starting to see a pattern here? At Sisters Coffee Company, I was mistaken for Ben Ryan, the Fiji Rugby team's head coach. I get it; all of us redhead coaches look alike. We drove to Mt. Hood for another short hike; the hike to Mirror Lake was worth the 3-mile wet and snowy trek through the dense Douglas fir forest.

Me? Or Ben Ryan?

The Wife walks the plank at Mirror Lake.

With a red-eye flight we had time for more food and beer in Portland. We ventured back to the Alberta Arts District for great Indian food at Bollywood Theater then stumbled on that hidden brewery I mentioned earlier. Great Notion Brewery is a small brewpub but the 4 beers they had on tap were spectacular! Juice Box - a cloudy DIPA that looked like a mimosa - was the stand out; this tasted like a hoppy peach and mango juice box. Root Beard is their take on a root beer flavored beer that's actually done right (I usually dislike this style because they taste like cough syrup). Then we had one more stop we had to make: Salt & Straw for ice cream. Their strange combinations of flavors may not sound all that appealing, but I assure you that the Pear & Bleu Cheese flavor is divine.

I'll be back for you Oregon, you beer-loving, trucker-hat-wearing, coffee-drinking son-of-a-bitch!

Me? Or Ben Ryan?