The cheese to my macaroni

With an opportunity to get another snow-free run in I decided to spend most of the day here in Portland rather than catch the first flight out. It also gave me a chance to see two of my favorite Skinny Raven girls who are going to school in Portland.

Both Caroline Livett and Mandy Vincent-Lang are attending school at Lewis and Clark but have been two great workers that make Skinny Raven such a great place to shop. Caroline is just starting law school while Mandy, a dead ringer for Juno (minus the pregnant belly), is student-teaching 3rd graders. Joining us was Ben Evans, who is our Adidas rep. We traveled up to one of Portland's special places, Forest Park, for the run.

Forest Park is a wonderful place for running and rivals any of the diverse trails we have in Anchorage. The total trail system is over 40 miles, between winding single track trails for running-only to wide open fire road routes that bikes are allowed on. I encourage anyone to take the time to explore the trails. On a mid-summer Saturday morning one can see casual runners and Olympic athletes using the trails. Despite Mandy and Caroline claiming they were not in very good shape, they gaped Ben and I on the first hill and we never caught them until we turned around.

After a brunch in which we failed a six-question trivia test for 1/2 off our bill (who knew some baseball player insured his face for 1 million?) we hit the Adidas employee store. Adidas has their U.S. headquarters in Portland and instead of a "campus" like Nike, has an Olympic-themed "village" with five buildings that are colored like the five Olympic rings. I did much better than at the Nike employee store and scored a couple of nice pieces and some shoes.

All in all a good trip with some good runs, despite general soreness in the hamstring. Time to get back to hitting the snow and ice and get a solid routine going.