Forest Park in Portland is the largest urban forested Park in the lower 48
It contains about 80 miles of trails and roughly 1/3 of that figure comes from
just one footpath -- the famous Wildwood Trail
So what are we doing today? We're running the Wildwood Trail, all of it.
All 30.2miles. I've got it all figured out. What, like, what's our plan, basically?
So we have four different legs... The first leg's 5.5 miles
Leg two is a solid 14 miles of just trees
Isn't it the next leg we cross... Leg three we are gonna be going to Pittock Mansion no actually it's the
leg after Pittock that we go over Burnside. Oh really okay.
At that point in the trail like I don't know how
many miles in, you get this view of the city and it's kind of like all right
we're almost there type thing. Yeah, and we literally just roll
down the mountain to the end
Silly question but the crux of it all, why are we doing this?
Because it's out there, because it's one of the longest
sustained trails in any city, 30 miles, so it's just an epic opportunity to be able
to run that I've been wanting to do this ever since I moved to Portland. Yeah
Like, one day I'm gonna run the whole Wildwood Trail so I'm glad we're finally getting out there to do it
I feel like it's time to go more or less. Yeah, do you think we're prepared?
As ready as we're gonna be
Here we go
See you in 5.5 miles. Bye
Our first leg started at the Wildwood Newberry trailhead and took us on a
winding path through the dense Northwest Portland Forest
It took a little bit to warm up on a chilly morning, but we eventually settled into a comfortable pace
We chatted and took in the beautiful scenery trying to keep our
focus on those distractions instead of the many miles ahead
So we just got done with 5.5 miles first leg of Wildwood. Felt pretty good.
Felt alright, yeah. We definitely warmed up. Yeah, over time I think
I had to take off the ear warmers and the gloves... Yeah yeah yeah
So we're moving. Yeah
Feeling good for now, see if that continues next time we see you guys
Since we wouldn't see the camera crew again for a while, we took the opportunity to take a short
rest, fuel up, and prepare as best we could for the longest leg of the day
I'm just taking some ibuprofen. Little pre-emptive. Just getting ready for the burn
All right want to get up? Yeah. All right
We are 9-ish, 9 to 10 miles in, and it's super gorgeous, we're taking a little walk break, having a great time
We're not too beat yet
13.2 miles. Is that your first half-marathon? Second
When did you do a half marathon?
I ran 16.6 a couple weeks ago
Yeah but like, official
This is not official But sure, this is my first official half marathon!
With our dubiously official half marathon behind us we forged ahead
toward the end of our second leg, where we'd meet up with the camera crew once again
We're still running! Kinda
I think doing this with like with us together is like leaps and bounds better than doing it alone
It would be so hard to do by yourself
Like, I would be... We would give up
Phone says we're 20.3 miles in
Two-thirds of the way. Yeah, feeling good
We're basically like hitting my estimates for our time
that you thought were really unrealistic
Hey, you know best
Just saying
Ultimately, rock on. Rock on, rock on
We're gonna rest up a little bit, grab some water and food keep going that way for 10 more miles
Finish it!
It's gonna be great
We've seen a lot of cute dogs
and a lot of like, big dogs
and a lot of tiny dogs. Lots of dogs
Lots of dogs generally
Two-thirds of the way through, we were definitely slowing down. But the short rest and some
stretches did us good, and our spirits remained high
Getting ready to start leg three
we have about five miles and we're gonna stop at stone house, cross
Cornell Road and then head up to Pittock Mansion
We'll see you there. Let's do it
I'm feeling really good, I left Jim behind me because I wanted to run
and he'll catch up, but I think it's important to run your own pace
and right now my pace is fast!
My pace? Not so much
Good work babe
Man, this place is crawling with people. Yeah
Lots of people, well, Hallo-weekend
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah
It's a witchy place
Very witchy place
Five and a half miles!
I know, we're so close! We're getting there
I feel like we're speeding up now that we know that we can actually make it
we're just like, set to jet
We're at Pittock Mansion, end of leg three
26 point... Something miles, so we've run a marathon
Which feels pretty good. Yeah, that feels pretty good
I think we're feeling a lot better than we thought we'd feel
Definitely sore in the legs, trying
to limit the stops at this point because anytime we stop it's lost momentum all
we need is some water, a little bit of a refuel
Just about four miles left until we're done this thing
Our final leg was only about four miles, but by then we were losing light and
running out of gas. We crossed Burnside onthe brand-new pedestrian bridge
and staggered toward the finish
Whew
That was hard. Oh, that was really hard. The last four were really hard
It feels good to be done
Wow what a day
I'm ready for dinner
To the car? Yes
After Pittock we walked, basically. Yeah, we were talking about, like, the 20-mile wall
I think we hit it five miles later. We hit it at 26. Yeah. We hit the wall
where we just stopped running, running was not an option
It was, like, hobbling
It felt good to like, accomplish something pretty significant I think together
We did it faster than climbing Mount Hood! There we go
it's pretty cool. That's cool. So yeah, wouldn't change it.
Now I'm ready to relax
I'm ready to put my toes in a sauna... We don't have a sauna! And my body in a hot tub
We have neither of those things! All right what do you say? Let's get out of here
You wanna carry me? I don't. I can't, actually
Hey there folks, I'm Jim Ryan, thanks so much for watching
our latest episode of Peak Northwest. We love hearing your feedback and if you
feel so inclined drop me a note and let me know what you think of the series so
far and where you think we should go in the future. Thanks again for watching and
we'll see you soon