OCTOBER 19, 2017 // 3
SCRATCHPAD
Take that, race doubters
occasional jog up my street,
perhaps. But long-distance
running? Not so much. This
would be a fi rst for me.
Yep, I told her.
It was the fourth time in
three days I had revealed
my quixotic, possibly
delusional plan to run the
full 10K (6.2 miles): from
Dismal Nitch Rest Area
in Washington, over the
Astoria Bridge, followed by
a last loop near the Astoria
Riverwalk en route to the
fi nish line at the foot of
Basin Street.
By ERICK BENGEL
COAST WEEKEND
A
A friend asked me:
You’re running the
race? Like, running
it?
We had bumped into
each other less than an hour
before we were scheduled to
participate in the Great Co-
lumbia Crossing last Sunday
morning.
Running, she knows, is
not something I am widely
known for. A brisk jaunt to
the nearest bakery, sure. The
coast
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
weekend
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THE ARTS
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Astoria native’s cookbook picking up steam
COAST WEEKEND EDITOR
ERICK BENGEL
CALENDAR COORDINATOR
REBECCA HERREN
CONTRIBUTORS
DAVID CAMPICHE
LAURA CHERAU
RYAN HUME
KATHERINE LACAZE
BARBARA LLOYD McMICHAEL
COASTAL LIFE
Close to Home
Stalking the wild mushroom
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PHOTO BY COLIN MURPHEY
The historic Liberty Theatre in downtown Astoria
14
And it was the fourth
time someone had looked at
me as if I had misplaced my
meds.
A colleague, unable to
hide her incredulity, asked:
Have you ever done that be-
fore? (As if that’s something
I should have considered.)
It’ll shock your system, she
warned.
Even my running mate, a
seasoned marathoner, auto-
matically assumed we would
be walking.
The doubters had spoken,
and what they said didn’t
DINING
Mouth of the Columbia
Salt Hotel & Pub sweats the details
FURTHER ENJOYMENT
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exactly add up to a vote of
confi dence. As race day ap-
proached, I began to wonder
what on earth I had gotten
myself into.
Let it therefore be
known that on the fi fteenth
of October, in the year of
our Lord 2017, I ran the
Great Columbia Crossing
from start to fi nish. (Well,
alternated, really, between
running and jogging, fol-
lowed by an exasperated
sprint near the end to get it
over with.)
It occurred to me that
I’ve never fully appreciated
the grandeur of the bridge
or the stunning panorama of
the Columbia River while
merely driving over it.
But on Sunday, as the
Oregon landmass got closer,
I took a few moments to
behold our little port town,
tucked into the hillside
and sprawled along the
riverfront, a site of historic
rendezvous among Na-
tive people, explorers and
empires.
The Crossing, truth be
told, wasn’t something I
wanted to do, but something
I wanted to have done. That
changed as I reached the
peak of the bridge; I was
actively enjoying myself, no
longer worried about eating
pavement. I had made it that
far without stopping, and by
then I knew I could fi nish
without stopping.
Total time: One hour, 9
minutes, several seconds.
Roughly 11-ish minutes per
mile.
“Shock my system”?
Haughty laugh. True, my
knees feel like they’re going
to buckle — I will be limp-
ing for a few days — but no
shattered shins, no internal
bleeding, no hallucinations,
no chafi ng. Win.
“I did believe in you, sort
of,” my running mate texted
me afterward.
Will I run next year? Do
doubters doubt? CW