Recapping a weekend of Scrabble, running, and beer in Portland, OR
Sometimes in life, you have a weekend that comes along when you just can't quite decide how best to pass the time. Do you want to play a little Scrabble? Go for a big, long run? Or, perhaps, just relax and hang out with some friends and enjoy a couple of beers?
The thing is, though, if you're a CoCo member and you're anywhere near the Portland, OR area, you get the occasional weekend when you don't have to choose. You can simply have all three.
That's the beauty of the Portland Pub Scrabble series, which was back in full force this past weekend. In a stroke of genius, director Dave Wiegand arranged for a weekend of Scrabble tournaments - a 1-day on Saturday afternoon and another one Sunday - sandwiched around a 10k running event in downtown Portland on Sunday morning. And it wasn't just any running event - nay, it was the "Bridge to Brews" race, in which competitors run all over town and then enjoy a beer festival and live music at the finish line. So, if you played your cards right, you had the chance to enjoy a weekend of Scrabble and beer, followed by running and beer, followed by more Scrabble and more beer. Speaking as someone who indulged in all of the above things personally, I can tell you firsthand - my legs, liver, and brain are all completely exhausted, but it was nonetheless all worth it. What a fun weekend.
It all began on Saturday at noon at Double Mountain - an establishment known to dozens of CoCo players as the site of our group lunch on the Monday after Hood River every year. But once the beloved brewery/pizzeria opened a location in North Portland, it was only a matter of time before we got around to holding a tournament there, and indeed we finally did it this weekend. Nine players showed out, and it was a competitive event through and through.
A few of the top seeds stumbled out of the gate a little bit on Saturday, and we ended up with an interesting race to the finish. No. 6 seed Travis Chaney dominated the field for much of the day, starting off 5-0, while No. 7 Eric Fox was not far off his pace, starting with 3.5 wins in his first five. Ultimately, though, it was Chris Grubb who rallied to win the tournament, recovering from an early loss against Travis and getting his revenge on him in the final game. Chris ended up with a 5-1 record and the top spread in the tournament, Conrad Bassett-Bouchard rallied to get to 5-1 himself and second place, and Travis ended up in third despite losing only one game. Crowded field at the top! Congrats to all.
And then came the race. We ended up with a contingent of three Scrabblers signed up to run on Sunday morning - Dave, Chris, and myself (though we were joined by special guests including Chris' sister and the husband of my old college friend who I'd randomly bumped into on Friday afternoon). The race was fun! It was a winding course that sent us running back and forth across the Willamette River multiple times, crossing bridge after bridge. A couple of the bridges were pretty uphill and pretty grueling! But all of us persevered and finished. Dave set a new personal record in the 10K, while the rest of us merely survived. But hey, mere survival is something to be proud of. And a beer festival at the finish line makes all the pain worthwhile.
Next, it was on to the second Scrabble event, held at Migration Brewing. The same nine players were back at it again, and again, it was a slugfest at the top of the standings. Two-thirds of the way through the tournament, there were four of us tied for first place at 3-1 - it was Kolton Koehler, myself, Dave, and Conrad. Depending on how the final two rounds shook out, any one of us had a reasonable chance to win. Conrad beat Dave in round 5, and Kolton got me in an absolute squeaker, 391-384, that came down to a scrambled mess of an endgame in the final seconds. This pitted Kolton against CBB for the tournament - and it was Kolton who took it down, winning 496-363 in the final round. Props to Kolton.
Once the whirlwind weekend was in the dust, we crowned all of our winners - Chris was the champion of Saturday's event, Dave the track star of the weekend, and Kolton won Sunday's Scrabbles. Conrad, who snagged second place on both days, won the prize for best overall record across Saturday and Sunday. Congrats to all of the above, and a big thankyou to Dave for organizing the whole weekend. All the festivities went off without a hitch.
It's hard to imagine a better weekend than a gathering of friends in Portland, two Scrabble tournaments, and a running and beer festival to boot. I'll raise a glass and toast to that every time.