I woke up Saturday morning at 6:30 to get ready for the run. I had spent the night on a very uncomfortable sofa bed so everything was already a little stiff and achy. I filled up my fuel belt bottles (with gatorade powder inside already) with water and the Gu I brought with me and I was all ready to go. My brother met up with me at the hotel a little after 7:00 and we walked down the street to the waterfront. The weather was perfect for running... a little sunny but cool with some big clouds coming towards us.
Portland's Waterfront Park
Portland has a really nice waterfront park and trails that go along both sides of the Willamette river. I had looked online for some good running spots and my brother suggested we just run along the river. Because of all the bridges you can pretty much cover any mileage you want using the trail system. The actual trail system is about 40 miles total (although it isn't all finished yet so not all the trails are well linked together yet). We picked a route that would get us to about 10 miles (we both needed to do 12) and figured all the walking we would do the rest of the weekend would make up those 2 extra miles.
We started out at the Waterfront, ran north along the river and crossed over the river on the Steel Bridge. The Steel Bridge has two levels-- the upper one for cars, and a lower one for trains and pedestrians. The lower level isn't high enough for ships to pass underneath so when a ship or barge comes through, the middle section of the lower level lifts straight up (I guess this is called a "double lift" bridge). Of course we got to the bridge right when they were lifting that section for a barge that was coming up the river. We hung out for a few minutes will all the other runners and bikers out there and watched the empty barge and tugboat pass under the bridge. Kinda cool :D
We started out at the Waterfront, ran north along the river and crossed over the river on the Steel Bridge. The Steel Bridge has two levels-- the upper one for cars, and a lower one for trains and pedestrians. The lower level isn't high enough for ships to pass underneath so when a ship or barge comes through, the middle section of the lower level lifts straight up (I guess this is called a "double lift" bridge). Of course we got to the bridge right when they were lifting that section for a barge that was coming up the river. We hung out for a few minutes will all the other runners and bikers out there and watched the empty barge and tugboat pass under the bridge. Kinda cool :D
Steel Bridge
On the other side of the river we hooked into the Vera Katz Eastside Esplanade trail. It's a nice paved path that runs along the river-- there are even some interesting sculptures along the trail. After about a mile or so, we hooked into the Springwater Corridor Trail which runs parallel to the river along a train track. Once we got past the gravel plant, it was a really pretty trail and seemed very far removed from the city. We passed by the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge with all the gorgeous wildflowers and trees. That trail took us all the way to the Sellwood Bridge where we crossed back over the river.
Springwater Trail
Sellwood Bridge
At this point Grady and I took a little Gu and gatorade break. Grady hadn't brought anything with him so like the good sister I am, I sacrificed some of my gatorade. :( At this point we had run almost 6 miles or so and I felt really good. Pretty much all the sun had gone away so it hadn't warmed up too much and was still cool. Up until this point Grady and I had stuck together... it was nice to have some time to chat and talk about his life in Portland. He's usually MUCH faster than I am but was a good brother and didn't leave me in the dust. I think he had planned on running ahead of me for the last few miles but since he was starting to have some pain in his foot along his arch (maybe Plantar Fasciitis) he decided to stick with me at the slower pace. I'm so glad he did because I would have gotten SO lost on the way back if I was on my own. The trails on this side of the river were much more disjointed... a few times we had got to the end of one trail and had to run down some random side street for awhile to connect into the next trail section. Grady (usually very directionally challenged) did a great job navigating us around.
View of Portland from the Sellwood Bridge
Along this side of the river we had some beautiful view of downtown Portland. For most of it we were right along the river but after a couple miles we ran on the street until we got back to the Waterfront Park. At one point we cut across this grassy hill, right through a huge flock of geese. Most of the geese just hobbled out of our way (do geese hobble?) but not all of them... some of them actually HISSED at us! Yes, they hissed. They opened their little beaks and emitted this awful little hiss. I never knew they could be so mean :(
We survived the hissing geese and made it back to our starting off point. My Garmin said we had done about 10.25 miles but since I lost the signal a couple of times under the trees, I rounded it up to 10.5 :) I don't know exactly how long it took us... I had to start my watch at mile 1 because it took so long to find the satellites... something to do with traveling hundreds of miles since I last used the watch. My watch said we did the last 9.5 miles in 1:52 so I figured we did all 10.5 in a little over 2 hours.
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