A quick glance into the riverfront home designed by Karen Smuland Architecture and visitors see a home washed in brilliant light and stunning views of the Deschutes River. The crisp lines of the concrete countertops and the white oak floors are anchored by a growing trend in architecture and design: a large and foldable glass door. Unlike the smaller, two-panel sliding glass doors of the past, these glass doors fold together like an accordion, offering a seamless transition from indoor to outdoor, merging nature with architecture. “Maintaining a connection to the outdoors just makes people happier and healthier,” Smuland said. “And so people really are trying to have that kind of indoor-outdoor connection, regardless of how big their yard is…they want to be able to have that flow.”
A large glass door with a picturesque view of the Cascade Range is also a defining feature of a new Awbrey Butte residence by Brandon Olin Architecture. The opening leaves visitors feeling like they can reach out and touch the mountains. “[Moveable glass doors] have a certain sense of drama,” Olin said, “And just make a real impact on what the house looks like.” According to Smuland, these doors can be well worth the cost with a good view. “If you’re going to have a wall there, you’re going to have windows in it or something,” she said. “It’s more expensive than windows but the benefits really outweigh it, if you have a view.”
During the pandemic, many sought a deeper connection with the outdoors and nature. This is easily seen in the continued interest of implementing plants into home design, and the increasingly popular hiking trails and camping spots around Central Oregon. A connection to nature continues to be a recurring theme in architecture and home design. “Scientists are becoming more aware of the connection to the outdoors, even visually, just makes people more productive, happier, healthier, etc.,” Smuland said. “Lots of office buildings are capitalizing on that, trying to retain workers and make them more productive.”
With moveable glass doors becoming more popular, builders are becoming more experienced in executing new builds with this feature. “It seems like we’re doing it in every home we do,” said Tim Duey, the owner of the homebuilding company Duey Built. Duey said the last eight houses they have completed included a moveable glass door.
Additionally, access to these doors has also increased. According to Olin, these features used to be produced only by some of the highest priced window and door manufacturers. Now, they’re built by more manufacturers which has made them easier to acquire. At the same time, Olin said, the technology and performance of these features have improved from an energy standpoint which has helped them meet energy codes. “From a pragmatic and a practical standpoint,” he said, “those are probably the two reasons why they’ve become a little bit more commonly used.”
The opening in this Awbrey Butte residence frames dramatic mountain views. The home was designed by architects Brandon Olin and Van Tassel Design and constructed by Duey Built, with interior design by Van Tassel Design. Photo Kayla Mckenzie Photography
While moveable glass doors can dramatically impact a home’s design, there are a few common concerns as well, namely privacy and environmental factors. The most popular solution to the issue of privacy is to mount rolling shades above the doors. Duey mentioned that every home they’ve built with a moveable glass door has included these shades. Olin said they try to address the issue of privacy through the design as a whole, and how they orient the outdoor spaces and landscaping. Often, the glass doors will face a more private courtyard or patio, rather than opening in full view of the public—but, homeowners may need to be comfortable sacrificing some privacy for stunning views. Other lesser concerns include bugs entering a house or a gust of wind knocking something over inside, both issues that optional screens can help address.
For those with the means and desire for these glass features, it can be the perfect way to fuse a home with the outdoors. “They’re stunning,” Olin said.
Mount Ashland, 4:40 a.m.—With the sun still hiding behind the evergreens, nearby speakers sparked to life as music blasted to shatter the calm. Rolling out of bed, Nic Feldkamp rose to find dozens of people milling about before the start of the 100-kilometer Siskiyou Out Back Trail Run. For many, the idea would be a nightmare. Yet this breed of runners appeared happy. The group would soon set off to run for almost seventeen hours starting at 5 a.m. Feldkamp’s 50-kilometer (31-mile) race would begin an hour later.
Training runs for Ashley Sharpe and Brandon Stutzman may begin before sunrise.
Ultramarathon participation has boomed across the country and globe—the largest study on ultrarunning done by Run Repeat in conjunction with the International Association of Ultrarunning showed participation in ultramarathons had increased 345 percent in the decade leading up to 2018. Oregon’s mountains and trails are a hotspot for ultrarunners and those interested in pushing their bodies to the limit with early wake-up times, late nights and hundreds of miles of dirt caked on their soles. Running 31 miles, 50 or 100 may seem insurmountable, but ultrarunners say it’s not much different from a marathon except for a change in perception and a few key things.
Focus on Why
For those who have the itch of desire to run ultra distances, much of the battle is already won. “If you want to do it, I honestly believe you’re already ninety-percent of the way there,” said Feldkamp, who works at FootZone in downtown Bend and who has completed five ultramarathons—a run of any distance beyond a marathon at 26.2 miles.
“I think there’s a lot of merit to that,” said Dr. Lindsay Ross-Stewart, a sports psychologist and director of mental performance for Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Illinois. Ross-Stewart acted as thesis advisor in 2022 to ultrarunner (and master’s student at the time) Megan Meckfessel. The study compared the difference in psychological skills between ultra-endurance athletes (those who had completed at least one ultramarathon, Ironman triathlon or a competitive cycling or swimming event lasting longer than five hours) and endurance athletes (those who competed in events such as marathons, triathlons, road races and cycling events) and was published in The Sport Journal. The study found the psychology between the two groups largely similar, but there were several differences. Ross-Stewart said, “When it came to motivation related to drive, ultra-athletes had a higher drive and then also persistence.” She added, “It’s not about being fit. It’s really about the psychological excellence.” The psychology behind running an ultramarathon, and the dedication to pushing human limits, is one of the main lures for many runners like for ultrarunner and clinical sports psychologist Cory Nyamora, who holds a doctorate in clinical sports psychology. “One of the draws is just seeing what your mind can do,” he said. “Training your mind to deal with the ups and downs and just keep going.”
The resilience and dedication needed to finish an ultra often boils down to finding your “why.”
In his first 100-mile ultramarathon—the Fire Fest Ultra in Nevada—Brandon Stutzman, an ultrarunner from Bend, made it 59 miles before calling it quits. Much of his inability to finish, he said, was because he didn’t have a clear reason for running the race. Before signing up for another, he found his “why”: To raise money for the Bethlehem Inn, a homeless shelter in Bend and Redmond where he’d lived with his family for a few months in 2011. In April, 2022, he successfully ran 100 miles on the Dry Canyon Trail in Redmond and completed 1,000 pushups and 1,000 pull ups in thirty-three hours to raise $14,500 for the shelter. For him, the running challenge was relative. “It’s not hard to run a 100-miler,” he said. “It’s hard to be homeless.”
Michelle Abbey trains near Benham Falls. Photo by Jesse Polay
Building Up
The trajectory to the start line of an ultra-endurance race is similar for many athletes. Many begin with 5k and 10k races before moving up to half marathons and marathons. Michelle Abbey, an ultrarunner in Bend, picked up running in her thirties. She started with a 10k mud run with a friend, then tried a half marathon and a full marathon. From there, she spent some time on triathlons before deciding to focus on running, where she began with a 50k, then a 50-miler and a 120-mile stage race. “I am that person who’s always in the back of the pack. It takes me forever. I’m chasing cutoff times,” she said. “But I do it. I think the reason it appealed to me in the first place is [because] I’m not very fast.”
It isn’t always the fastest who wins, it’s simply the one who can keep going the longest, which is the concept behind the Lastest Not Fastest—a last-person-standing trail race in Tumalo organized by Renee and Todd Janssen of Go Beyond Running and taking place in October. The rules are simple: Finish one 4.5-mile loop every hour, on the hour, as many times as possible. If you finish the loop in thirty minutes, you then have thirty minutes to relax before starting the next loop. If you finish in fifty-nine minutes, you then have one minute to rest. The race continues until there’s a single runner left. “It’s an unusual format,” Renee Janssen said. “But the thing about it is that it’s a good event for people who are looking to do their first ultra distance.”
High Mileage = High Calories
It’s not just mileage numbers that are high. When it comes to nutrition, the rules are pretty straightforward: eat more than you think you should. “More often than not,” Abbey, who is also a registered dietitian nutritionist in Bend, said, “people just don’t eat enough.”
Much of this is due to the physical stress of training, which can reduce hunger. Claire Shorenstein, a board-certified sports dietitian and host of the Eat for Endurance podcast, emphasized how important personalized nutrition is, especially for longer distances like ultra-marathons. “We have very limited stores of energy in our body in the form of carbohydrates,” she said. When your body runs out of fuel, it will result in the infamous “hitting the wall” or “bonking” where runners do not have enough in their system to continue running.
Most people, she said, struggle to consume a recommended sixty to ninety grams of carbohydrates per hour, and it can take a lot of preparation to train the gut to handle such amounts during a long race. Nutrition training takes place along with mileage training. Additionally, dehydration “is a big deal,” Shorenstein said. If runners don’t replenish the sodium, electrolytes and water they lose through sweat, it can dramatically affect a race. This becomes even more pronounced at altitude, where many ultras are held, when hydration needs can be twenty percent higher.
With all the different nutritional variables at play during an ultra-endurance race, aid stations look different from those found along a marathon route: “There’s a whole buffet of food,” Shorenstein said. Abbey agreed, “It’s like a picnic…potato chips, peanut butter jelly sandwiches, bacon sometimes, potstickers. There’s all kinds of weird stuff out there,” Abbey said. Plus, it’s important to find food for the individual that won’t mess up their stomach. This can be an important factor in whether someone finishes a race. “There [are] about as many different strategies to nutrition for ultrarunners as there are phone numbers,” said Brandon Mader, a competitor and race director for the Timberjack Ultramarathon held in the Deschutes National Forest each September. “Sometimes it just really takes a while to dial in what works for your body.”
Brandon and Justyna Mudy-Mader offer mutual support.
Ultracommunity
Running such a high number of miles can be a solitary activity, but the unique sport of ultrarunning creates a community of like-minded athletes. “The first day you went out there and decided to start to run, did you ever think that you’d be running marathons?” Ross-Stewart said. For support, she suggests leaning on the ultrarunning community—the same people that woke up with smiles on their faces at 4:40 a.m. along with Nic Feldkamp. It takes focus, persistence, and being thoughtful with training to compete at this level. “It’s just amazing,” Feldkamp said, “what the human body can do.”
Mackenzie Stabler was nervous. Dressed in a waxed canvas vest with a badger fur collar and a black helmet, she fixed her horse with heavy bags and equipment for the day. The hazel and gold Argentinian hills stretched ahead, daring her forward. Everyone was on edge, horses included, as all prepared to fight through the harsh Patagonian wilderness.
Memories of a friend who left a 600-mile derby in Mongolia with a broken nose and fractured ribs followed Stabler to the event start. By the end of the day, one rider would be retired medically. Of the thirty-five riders who started, five more would follow. “I just want to survive the front part of this race,” she thought as she plunged into the wilds.
A Wild Idea
Stabler, the director of operations for Humm Kombucha, joined the Gaucho Derby as a break from her usual life in Bend. The competition launched this past March 3, with participants racing Patagonian ranch horses 310 miles over ten days through the visceral landscapes of Patagonia to the Argentinian village of El Chalten.
The Derby was created by adventure tour companies The Adventurists and The Equestrianists, which offer long-distance multi-horse races in Mongolia and Patagonia, and are working on bringing races to North America, the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia and Europe.
The race runs on a “horses first, humans second” approach and tests the endurance of the riders, not the horses. Every 30 kilometers (18.6 miles), horses are checked out by veterinarians. Horses are swapped out nearly every day, meaning that participants ride about seven different horses throughout the competition.
Many riders raise money for charity while riding—Stabler chose to support the Central Oregon chapter of Camp Fire, a youth development organization focused on the outdoors.
Carmen Jackson and Stabler trained together with plans to ride the race as a pair. Though they were not together the entire race, here they are pictured about to cross the finish line together. Photo courtesy of The Gaucho Derby, Sarah Farnsworth Photography
A Life Astride
Horses have been a central theme throughout Stabler’s life. When she was five years old, her parents recognized her interest and helped her get involved in traditional equestrian jumping. At nine years old, her family moved frequently—to Hong Kong, Macau, Southern California, Idaho and Washington. “But horses were there throughout,” she said.
Stabler’s first foray into backcountry horse packing came around five years ago. She filled her bags with supplies, strapped them to her horse and headed into the woods. She loved it.
Eventually, she met Stevie and Dylan Delahunt who co-run Intergalactic Equine and train riders for adventure races such as the Gaucho Derby. When Stabler heard about the race, she knew she wanted to do it. The outdoors, the travel, the horses—it was irresistible. “I signed up right away,” Stabler said. “I hardly even researched it. It just combined everything that I love.”
Two months later, however, COVID-19 struck. With the world closed, she focused on training—spending hours riding through the backcountry of Central Oregon with Stevie.
The remoteness of Patagonia meant that medics and a support crew rode days ahead of the competitors, and Stabler would need to rely on herself if need be. Skills with maps and GPS point-to-point navigation were a necessity, as were survival skills. Stabler focused on getting ready for the challenge.
Patagonian Perils
Halfway to the end of the race, another rider’s foot got stuck in a strap as he was dismounting. He flipped with his foot in the air and his head on the ground, right by his horse’s hind leg. A moment later, the horse kicked, connecting gruesomely.
They thought he was dead. Around two minutes passed before he regained consciousness. Stabler held his head and neck in place for twenty minutes as a medic jerry-rigged a neck brace out of a CamelBak. There was no room for error in this race. She recalled, “It made me really reflective on my life in general—just realizing that I have a really good life, and I really like all the people in it.”
A few days later, Stabler and Carmen Jackson, who she had trained with back in Bend, were lost. After getting turned around in some woods, they spent the day looping up and down massive hills with frustration building. Despite the lost time, however, they found themselves laughing about the incident afterward. Though they were competitors, Stabler realized how much she enjoyed the other riders, and how much she wanted to ride with them. “I just wanted to spend time with all of them,” she said. “They all had such cool stories.”
While the lost time cost Stabler and Jackson vital positions in the race to El Chalten, Stabler did finish, and found that simply surviving the wild was an accomplishment. Stabler is back in Bend now, re-immersed in her regular life. If she did the Derby again, the only thing she’d change is to go slower and ensure she fully absorbed everything. “All the smells, all the sights,” she said. “I would touch the dirt and really make sure I was logging in my memory where I was and what was happening.”
Dull. Drab. Dark. For some, these can be the emotions and feelings evoked in a space without plants. Those magical, green, life-sustaining organisms give off a wonderful feeling and can be so much more than just an afterthought sitting on windowsills. Plants can add color to any room; they can add subtle details that accent a room or they can be statement pieces that wow guests.
In Bend, the dry climate is one of the biggest obstacles for many houseplants, yet it is possible to implement plants effectively and functionally within a home’s design. “It’s just another element of design, like how you would use color to create a feeling in the room,” said Janessa Reynolds, owner of FigLeaf Plant Shop in downtown Bend. “It just really creates this more interactive, alive feeling in a room.”
Light the Way
The first step to implementing plants into your design is to take stock of the space with an eye toward lighting. “Really take your lighting and your home into account before you buy your plants,” said Erin Hasler, owner of Root Adorned, a home goods store in Bend’s NorthWest Crossing packed with plants. “So make sure you know where you have room for them, what direction your windows face, what kind of light they’re going to get each day.”
Once you do this, you can bring that information to a plant shop and they can help you find specific plants that will thrive.
Tackling Desert Air
Bend’s dryness is one of the biggest battles for keeping plants alive here since most houseplants come from tropical climates such as Florida. Buying a room humidifier or regularly misting plants can be a great way to combat this. Create humidity for plants by filling a tray with rocks and water then placing a plant pot on top of the rocks. The water will evaporate throughout the day and create a microenvironment around the plant, said John Kish, owner of Somewhere That’s Green, another plant shop in Bend.
Branching Out
Whether subtly incorporated into open shelving or taking command of a credenza, plants are sure to elevate a room’s design.
Dryness can also be balanced by placing plants in bathrooms and kitchens. The humidity created through shower steam or a pot of boiling spaghetti can help replace some of that missing moisture. “It just adds tons of freshness and makes it feel clean and bright and kind of fresh, which is what we want in those areas of the homes,” Reynolds said. She highly recommended ferns, calatheas or any other moisture-loving plants.
Lighting, however, can be tricky in these rooms. The marbled or frosted glass common in bathrooms cuts down on light particles and makes it difficult to sustain plant life. Choosing plants that do well in indirect light can help. Additionally, having a skylight can help plants receive the kind of light they need while also benefiting from the increased humidity.
In bathrooms, plants can serve as a focal point and help create a relaxing environment.“If you have a really nice bathtub setup, I think having a really nice large focal point like a tree is really cool, and adds a really nice weight of naturalness in something that is usually filled with porcelain and glass and plastic,” Kish said. “I’ve also seen a couple bathrooms with a lot of hanging plants, and that’s also really cool,” he said. “Aesthetically, it just looks really relaxing with lots of vines and you just make your own garden oasis.”
In kitchens, plants can serve as a tabletop centerpiece or liven up an area used for entertaining. “Having one or two countertop plants is really great for entertaining,” Kish said, “because it’s kind of a natural centerpiece that continues to keep living.”
Adding to the Aesthetic
Depending on a home’s existing design style, various types of plants can complement color schemes, furniture and textiles already in the room. For modern homes with lots of glass tables and metal accents, terrariums or using glass pots could be a great fit. Snake plants or euphorbias with their clean, straight lines “work really beautifully in a modern home,” Hasler said. For rustic homes, she recommended more traditional plants such as the classic fiddle leaf fig or traditional ficuses. For bohemian homes, Reynolds recommended playful plants like philodendrons, pothos, or schefflera. Using wicker baskets can help create a more bohemian feeling as well, even for more dramatic plants such as fig trees.
Since the pandemic began two years ago, many of the annual foot races in Central Oregon were forced to postpone or cancel their events. Virtual races became common in 2020, followed by hybrid or downsized races in 2021. For many veterans and beginners, however, this spring offers a return to normal. This season presents an opportunity to return to the full experience of cheering crowds and thumping finish parties. Whether you are looking to knock out some cobwebs after a winter offseason or simply seeking a fun afternoon, spring will have no shortage of races to choose from in Central Oregon.
Lucky Leprechaun 5k/10k
March 12
While the St. Patrick’s Day Dash in Bend is canceled this year due to COVID-19, Kelly Bither of Run Sisters Run will be hosting the Lucky Leprechaun 5k/10k in Sisters on March 12. The race will start on the east side of Cascade Avenue and wind through the neighborhoods and town before finishing at a local restaurant with live music. Finishers will receive a custom and locally made shamrock medal and commemorative beer mug.
“It’d be nice for people who aren’t super serious but want to get out in the community,” Bither said, adding that walkers are welcome. There will also be a Best-Dressed Lucky Leprechaun contest and beer from Three Creeks Brewing. See runsignup.com.
Photo by Mark Stockcamp
Bend Marathon
April 10
After two years of hosting a virtual event, the Bend Marathon returns in person this year with options in the 5k, 10k, half marathon and marathon distances on Sunday, April 10. “We’re really hopeful and excited, and desperately want to be able to bring this event back to the community,” said Kari Strang, a Bend Marathon race director.
While the virtual events were great, she said, it just isn’t the same as a full in-person event. “There’s something about that human element and that true connectedness that you get when you are out doing something challenging together,” she said. Participants can still register for a virtual Bend Marathon and can receive a full refund if the race is canceled due to COVID-19. See bend-marathon.com.
Photo by Brian Becker
Peterson Ridge Rumble
April 10
For those who feel a little more adventurous, the Peterson Ridge Rumble will also take place on Sunday, April 10, and will offer distances of twenty miles and forty miles. The race takes place on the Peterson Ridge and Metolius-Windigo trails near Sisters. Proceeds will go to help fund the Sisters High School cross country team.
The Rumble, organized by Sean Meissner, is both cheaper and more easygoing than most races this length. Total elevation gain for the forty-miler is about 2,700 feet while the twenty-miler is about 1,000 feet, which contributes to a fast course. Instead of finisher shirts, runners will receive a pair of finisher socks.
The race is old school and lowkey, Meissner said. “It’s just very runnable.” See runlikeardy.com.
Salmon Run
April 23
For those looking to race in Bend, the 2022 Salmon Run on April 23 has runners follow the flow of the Deschutes River before looping back with 5k, 10k and half-marathon options. “The Salmon Run is the oldest continuous race in Bend,” said Aaron Switzer, a producer for the race. “Of all the races,” he said, “I think it’s one of the best ones to showcase Bend.”
While the half marathon is usually the most popular event, Switzer said, the Salmon Run 10k is a very popular early-season race for those looking to shed their winter layers and work up to the half marathon distance. The event benefits the Environmental Center in downtown Bend, which directs the funds towards river restoration and habitat restoration. See bendraces.com.
