A triathlete transitions to the bike portion of the sprint triathlon at the Pacific Crest Endurance Sports Festival in 2016.

The Pacific Crest Endurance Sports Festival is set for Thursday through Sunday in Bend.

The 27th edition of the event will include a wide variety of running races, triathlons, duathlons and more. Most of the races start and finish at Riverbend Park in Bend’s Old Mill District.

The Pacific Crest festival was formerly held in Sunriver, but was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It returned last year in Bend and merged with the Deschutes Dash triathlon and the Pilot Butte Challenge for one large event, and that is also the plan for this year.

Thursday at 6 p.m. the festivities will kick off with the Pilot Butte Challenge — a one-mile run up the butte — before the main events pick up on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday morning will include the marathon and half-marathon races, which will take runners through the west side of Bend and out to the Cascade Lakes Welcome Station. Five-kilometer and 10K runs are also slated for Saturday morning. All running courses include the paved path that parallels Century Drive southwest of Bend.

Saturday at 4 p.m. the Kids Splash, Pedal and Dash is the first of the triathlon events, an appetizer to what is to come on Sunday morning.

The final day of the festival features the Beastman triathlon, duathlon and aquabike.

The triathlon includes an 800-meter swim in the Deschutes River, a 56.7-mile bike ride along Century Drive and Cascade Lakes Highway west of Bend, and a 13.1-mile run.

The duathlon does not have the swimming portion to its race, while the aquabike event does not have a running element to its race.

The slightly shorter Olympic-distance events (formerly the Deschutes Dash races) also are scheduled for Sunday. The triathlon includes an 800-meter swim, a 25-mile bike ride and a 10K run.

Concluding the festival are the sprint events, which are shorter variations of the Olympic races.

Registration and more information is available at whyracingevents.com.