Trail running in Oregon

The last two visits to Portland my cousin has spoke of an awesome running trail in the Forest Park that is pretty much surrounded by the city. This time we ran the trail, or at least part of it. The park runs about 8 miles or so parallel to the Willamette River along a mountain ridge line from downtown Portland to where the river flows into the larger Columbia River. There are many trails for jogging, biking and hiking that range from completely flat to almost vertical. My cousin says the trails we ran have about 600 feet vertical difference in elevation. I estimate we ran about 4 miles. I learned several things during this exercise.


1st -- Look far ahead of you on the trail as it comes really quick going downhill, plus it is possible to give yourself motion sickness if you're looking directly in front of your feet and not where you're going!

2nd -- Stretch and stretch again.

3rd -- If I had terrain like this I would have the most amazing core muscles and NO MORE chicken legs. As I'm writing this it's four days past and certain stabilizing muscles in my legs are still sore! Trail running terrain like this is an excellent cross training for surfing!

4th -- I wanna do it again!

I attempted to video some of the experience. It's hard to see the elevation changes that are occurring and the incline/decline of the path, but you can see the beauty of lushness of the forest.