There were events in Eugene, OR on Friday and Saturday, July 3rd and 4th, 2026. We decided to split the driving into smaller pieces.
Thursday
We didn’t leave the house until a little after 1pm. We already had a reservation at some hotel in Portland but we wanted to spend time on machines, Arlene on the erg, me on the bike-erg, and we had leftovers to eat for lunch. Getting to Portland took a long time because traffic was bad a little by the shipyard in Bremerton, but really bad from Tacoma, through Fort Lewis, and all the way to south of Olympia. We decided not not to look for a dinner reservation.
We found a Safeway a couple of miles from the hotel and it had sandwiches and salads or whatever. That was dinner.
We watched an episode of Star Trek (the Original Series), “The Empath.”
Friday
After leaving the hotel we drove down toward https://www.powells.com/. One goal was to go to Dead Stock Coffee (https://deadstockcoffee.com/) which, in the past, we’ve entered from Couch St. not far from 4th. But we couldn’t find the entrance; it seemed to be covered with plywood. We were very sad. Up the street was another place but I already forgot the name because we already decided that we would want to try something different. Arlene’s latte was “ok” while my breve was way, way too hot and the flavor of the coffee was muted.
We’ve started thinking about selling the house and moving so we’ve started thinking about eliminating stuff. A few weeks ago I spent hours going through old books, trying in the ISBN numbers, and seeing if Powells would want them. After the completion of this process I sent Powells a box of books and they gave us, maybe, $48. Fine. They’re not in the landfill yet. So when we went into Powells today it was with a slightly different attitude. My goal was to choose just one book. Arlene seemded to converge on that posistion too. We each choose a book and our two books cost $39.xx. So, that’s a little bit funny. We will forever love Powells.
For some reason we suffered through traffic on the way to Eugene. We’d booked a sketchy place in Springfield and the phone navigation took us through a sketchy neighborhood to get the hotel. I think our dinner plan was to find something in the Whole Foods in Eugene before the Friday evening events. Arlene reminded me that she had some tofu from the hot bar and I had some pre-packaged sushi. We parked close to Moss St. on 17th and walked just a few blocks to Hayward field. We didn’t have assigned seating so our tickets said “General Admission” and we we allowed in various places includes section 215.
On Friday night there was a mens mile that wasn’t the Bowerman mile. In 2015 Arlene and I went to the Prefontaine Classic and I remember the Bowerman mile where someone ran a 3:51 and the entire field of 14 finished under 4. Well that was the Friday night mile except I don’t recognize any of the names of the runners and the two fastest were under 3:51.
There was a mens 2-mile where the pace lights were set at 8 minutes. We knew Parker Wolfe, Grant Fisher and Cooper Teare were in the field, maybe some others, but they let the pace lights go. Parker Wolfe won from the front in 8:10.x which is both pretty fucking amazing and a little disappointing.
In the mens 800 we saw Brandon Miller, Cooper Lutkenhaus, Donavan Brazier and Bryce Hoppel. Miller put on an amazing burst of speed from 150 meters out and I was disappointed when Miller won and Lutkenhous (at, what, 18?) didn’t crush everyone with a 1:41.
After leaving the race Whole Foods in Eugene was closed so we found a Safeway that sold us a couple of cups of yogurt (for breakfast) and sandwiches (for lunch) then to our sketchy Springfield hotel to crash. At least there was parking!
Saturday
The first stage of the 2026 Tour de France was today and it was a team time trial. We watched it and since the teams we most wanted to see… Lidl-Trek, Redbull, Visma, Ineos… started near the end and we didn’t leave the hotel until close to 10:30am. (Visma (Vingegaard) won but it was all in the range of totally predictable.) We needed coffee for Arlene and gas for the car. We found both we admit that we went to Starbucks on a trip for the first time in years. Generally we try to find the locally-run coffee places. We parked less than a block from where we had on Friday night and sat in very nice seats in section 215.
I think that the womens mile as the highlight: Nikki Hiltz, Faith Kipyegon, Jessica Jull, Georgia Hunter-Bell, Laura Muir. Arlene might have others. I don’t even know what the pace lights were set at but the pacer went out pretty quick and Kipyegon had to close the gap. After the pacer drop Kipyegon was in the front but she wasn’t flat out dropping everyone like could reasonably be expected, just pacing everyone else to a very nice mile. Nikki Hiltz wound it up starting 200 meters out and won. It was beautiful–both fast and hotly contested. And this group of women has been dominant in the middle distances for so long.
In the Bowerman mile the young Cameron Myers won by taking the lead after the pacer dropped and just crushing it with a 3:46.06. Yared Nuguse was 2nd (Arlene and I saw him run a 3:43.x behind Baby in 2023) and a total of 10 were under 3:49.
When we left Eugene we had no place to stay in Portland and no dinner plans. For dinner we settled on Noble Rot where we first visited in December. Arlene had a nice flight of Italian wines and some king salmon. I had a nice flight of malbecs from the Mendoza region and some pig meat. The brownie with ice cream we ordered for desert was good. Arlene thinks that Ken would have liked it.
Sunday
Stage 2 of the tour was a little weird with the largest hill a cat 3 in the middle then a loop of the same cat 4 in the last bit. UAE hit the front in the loop and just drilled it. In an exciting finish Pogacar gifted the win to Del Toro with Vingegaard a couple of positions back, same time, waiting to do what he does best.
Traffic was a little stickly arount Fort Lewis but not bad.
Back on the machines.