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Meat Cheese Bread
Great start of the trip! Friday: Settling in Arrrg, another race fail...face palm. I was running fine until Wednesday and boom, the pain struck me on my left leg. I don’t even know what it is that was damaged so suddenly. Somebody put a nail into my voodoo doll or somebody just doesn’t want me running races. It doesn’t matter. I was limping on Friday. There was not the slightest chance for me to be running the track town's Eugene 5k on Saturday or half marathon on Sunday, sigh. V will carry on as planned with the 5k and a full marathon.
It had been a busy week at work. I was non-stop since last weekend. I didn't even pack until the night before. This is very unlike me. V & I left our furry kids at 6:15 am Friday. Left the car at work and took a train to the airport. The walk to the train station took more than expected on limping legs but safely made it to the airport. It's been a while since the last Southeast flight. No assigned seat but numbered boarding was nice and orderly.
A short flight got us into rainy Portland before 10:30 am. Before
Twilight Meet
Hayward Field we head down to Eugene, lunch was in order. Meat Cheese Bread was a little cozy neighborhood eatery that serves fresh sandwiches. So good. To grab coffee for the road, we went to Good Coffee nearby. It was literally good coffee. Cold brew had nice acidity and sweetness. Right up my alley. They didn't even have jugs of milk and what not on the counter. We were not to tamper their creation...legit.
We got to the event expo around 3 pm at the soccer field at the University of Oregon. From there, we headed straight to the Hayward Field. They allowed us in with the race bib into the historic field to spectate Twilight Meet! This is awesome!! We finished a marathon a few years ago in this field but we were directed immediately out to the soccer field. This was the first time we were really “in” it. It is also undergoing a face-lift this summer. Watching amazing athletes on this coveted field was a treat. It was rainy and the temperature dropped way down. It was time for dinner. Whole Foods is great for us. V gets his meat and I get veggies...oh wait, there was no
meat! Have Whole Foods gone vegan?
Saturday: Pre-race protocol We had signed up for the 5k run as a shake-out run. Not for me anymore. I was able to walk it at best. 5k seems forever when I’m used to running. But hey, I did it. V came back to pick me up and we finished on the Hayward field track! I got to milk it on being on that plush track though ?. The weather was perfect; not as cold as it was forecasted.
We stopped by Eugene Saturday Market on our 3-mile walk back to the hostel. Market goes on an entire day and occupies all 4 corners. You can find pretty much every kind of crafts there. Ok, enough walking for V. He’ll need his legs tomorrow. Rest of the day was spent visiting Whole Foods for reliable pre-race meals and Sweet Life Patisserie.
Sun: In search of Balancing Rocks for the win After 4:30 am alarm and all that, V's marathon got ended abruptly and unfairly because he took the wrong turn. Very sad, especially because everything was going for him: training, weather, and the course. Just a horrible thing to
happen to any runner who trained hard for this. Need to get out of this town.
We left Eugene ~noon. Destination: Balancing Rocks! This thing is sooo hidden. It's mentioned here and there but there was just no clear direction how to get there. I finally found a blog that described more in detail. That paragraph was the only thing I had to work with. A few days before, I tried to follow on the Google map. But I couldn't find the landmarks in the description! If Google map doesn't know, I don't know. Luckily, the blog had the GPS coordinates. After formatting it, Google finally dropped a pin somewhere out in the boonies that seemed like it could match the direction. Yay! The written direction was from Bend on the east side but Google map showed a way to reach there from Eugene on the west side. Cool, we'll try to knock this one out on the way to Bend!
2.5 hrs later, we were on the gravel road in a National Forest. Google navigated us through the web of trails. When we came to the last few turns though..."Road Closed, private property, this area
under video surveillance”. What?! Looking at the map, there is no other way to get there. Grrr, Google map fail. What a bad day it had been 😞. Well, we had 3 options: 1) forget it all together and go straight to Bend, 2) try this again tomorrow from the east side, 3) drive couple hours more and try approaching from the east side, then 1.5-hr drive to Bend. #3 sounded daunting but like V said, we had to win somewhere today.
From Redmond, things started to sound familiar from the written direction. So far so good. But even then, if it wasn't for the Google map direction to the dropped pin, there was no way I could've followed the direction. There was just no sign at turns. Finally, the paved road ended. The parking lot should be 0.3 miles into the gravel road. Um…there is no parking per se. We saw a car and a motorcycle at a little turn out spot. Any further will put us away from the pin. But there was no sign that said Balancing Rocks. What is going on?? A couple was coming back from the trail going out from the
Balancing Rocks
Direction according to Google map... turnout. But they didn't know what I was talking about. Did the pin drop at the right place? Where the heck are we??
I was pretty skeptical but we came this far. We proceeded onto the walking path. Oh, could that be it? Yes yes YESSS!! Mushroom rocks popped up, wow! The river behind it was making an amazing scene. We went down on the eroded sidewall as far as we could. So cool how the rocks were chiseled perfectly. Nobody touches that thing, I swear. So glad we made it. It was a long journey to see this in person! We celebrated our win at Deschutes brew pub in Bend.
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