Run of Roses

An ode to my favorite Portland running route

Run of Roses

It’s been awhile.

Your lungs ache for more air.

Your legs feel intensely heavy.

Most of your routes you can run without breaking a sweat.

But this one, this one never gets easier.

Up up up. The first 2.5 miles are a steep climb.

Up through a street filled with scattered broken glass.

Up through old neighborhoods.

Up through a city garden.

It’s always at this very point where you ask yourself why you do this.

It’s terrible. You hate it. Except you don’t.

You repeat the mantra: the trail is always worth it.

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This course requires two walk breaks.

There’s simply no possible way for you to maintain pace on this constant, epic hill.

Up the moss covered steps.

Around the derelict fountain.

Dodging cars, people, bikes.

Finally, the last semblance of pavement lies before you.

A short curved shady road leading to the dirt path which calls you.

People, noise, fatigue, fades out to the quiet calls of stoic trees.

The heat of the day has dried the mud that lines the way you run.

The ground has cracked, split in two where all the moisture has been drawn out.

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It’s been a while.

Your feet trip over roots your memory knows are there.

You have to relearn the footfalls you once knew with utter uncanniness.

That nagging pain you’ve had in your ankle for weeks is gone.

Doctors’ visits, ice, medications, and all you really needed was a break from pounding the urban cement and a return to the softer, more giving earth.

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It’s probably not a wise decision to run this trail at this hour.

At nearly dusk there are no more hikers, you pass no one.

There could be an axe murderer crouched behind any one of the thousands of trees.

But, you think, you could probably outrun him.

Up and down, round the bends, over a crick, ducking your head to dodge a low hanging bough. This variance is natural, not the complete falseness of synthetic flatland that is metropolitan.

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It’s been 25 minutes of solid running, and you just now feel yourself settle in.

It’s not effortless, for you running never is, but the struggle now feels incredibly more worth it than before.

The last streaming rays of sunlight break through the gaps in the tree cover, spotting your skin like golden pigment.

Despite the hour, you still feel the headiness of summer heat.

You take the bottom of your shirt and wipe the sweat that’s forming on your brow.

The path changes.

Your legs lighten.

So begins the descent.

What once was up, up, up, now turns down down down.

A gentle slope back towards reality is all the boost you need to completely let go.

The path narrows.

Your legs move faster, feet barely contacting the ground.

Low-dwelling plants skim your bare ankles and calves.

Their stems like little organic arms reaching out to just get a touch of your skin, a strange sensation.

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This part of the trail curves every 50 feet.

You don’t slow down for the turns.

Your memory is coming back.

Your feet find the footholds without your eyes looking.

You feel like a star half-back, juking and stiff-arming any foliage that dares to block your path.

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Where the ground ebbs and swells, creating natural jumps, you fly over unpaved roots.

On this run, sometimes you don’t bring music.

Despite its seclusion, this world is never truly quiet.

Birds, bugs, leaves, the wind slinging past your bud-less ears; a symphony of sorts.

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You literally can’t slow down.

You flail wildly down the forest path, praying to god that you don’t trip because that would be one serious medical bill.

And just like that, the forest trail spits you back out into the concrete world.

Dirt meets pavement.

Trees become telephone poles.

Natural symphony turns to urban static.

You stand in the middle of the road for just a second, always fascinated by the feeling of being the only person in a place where so many people pass everyday.

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Down you go.

Down around the water tower.

Down through the rows of roses.

Down the city street lined with scattered broken glass.

end

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