Blooms to Brews boasts beautiful views

This year’s Blooms to Brews Marathon is all about the five.

For the fifth annual event, set for April 28, a friendly fifth race category has been added: a 5K run-walk, of course.

“That seemed appropriate and a little more fun” for folks who want to experience the event but aren’t quite ready for a longer distance, said organizer Elba Benzler of Battle Ground nonprofit Get Bold Events.

The other Blooms to Brews runs are just what they’ve been in previous years: a Boston-qualifying marathon, a half-marathon, a four-person marathon relay and a 10K run. The runs all start and finish at Horseshoe Lake Park in Woodland, exploring the mercifully flat Woodland Bottoms agricultural zone and providing sweet views of the Lewis and Columbia rivers.

But the sweetest views of all are the Holland America Flower Gardens for which Woodland is famous. Holland America may have discontinued its big annual Tulip Festival a couple of years ago, but there’s no stopping those huge, dazzling fields of tulips on South Pekin Road — an eyeful of incentive for all runners — as well as families and fans eager to spectate, then maybe go pick some blooms for 50 cents a pop.

“The city is in bloom. Tulips are still coming up out of the ground, like always,” said Benzler.

Most runners (except those doing the 5K, and relay runners with different segments) also pass by Woodland’s other famous flower outpost, the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens — but that’s a historic homestead site, smaller and set back from the street, so there’s less to admire while you run your route.

All Blooms to Brews finishers get a finisher medal. There are overall top-three awards for men and women in each event category, as well as top-three awards for each age group. Everybody who registers gets access to the post-event party at Horseshoe Lake Park: food, live DJ and one root beer or real beer from the brewers on hand: Loowit Brewing, Brothers Cascadia Brewing, Heathen Brewing and McMenamins. (More brewers may have been added by race time.) Family, friends and spectators can enjoy the post-party, too, but must purchase what they’re eating and drinking.

A $40 bump in your registration transforms you from an ordinary runner into a VIP, which gets you entry to a covered, heated lounge, massage therapists, multiple food and beverage options and an open bar. Check on availability for this.

Blooms to Brews is staged by Get Bold Events of Battle Gound; it will benefit PKU Northwest, a nonprofit association supporting people with phenylketonuria, a genetic-metabolic disorder.