A couple friends and Runners of the Wild here in Portland started a weekly tradition of running a crazy 10 mile loop of non stop gritty quad burning climbs.

The route was created to get the most vertical climbing as possible in about 10 miles. It starts and finishes at the infamous Skyline Tavern that sits on the rooftop of Forest Park. The route has been properly named, The Skyline Nasty.  

They do the run every Sunday and follow it up with well earned grub at the tavern.

Two of the runners, Thomas and Angie, started coming to the weekly getaway after moving to Portland from Alaska last year.  They told us their story of this weekly getaway. 

 

"We moved to Portland from Fairbanks Alaska on a Thursday and showed up at 9am Sunday morning for our first run. The group that Sunday was also the first people we actually met after arriving in town. They had no idea what our ability level was but none of that seemed to matter. We were welcomed with open arms and smiling faces. 

Every time we fell behind everyone was waiting at the next trail junction with smiles, high fives and words of encouragement. I figured they were just being polite and were probably a little put off by us holding them back. When we finally got back to the tavern we were invited in for brunch and spent about an hour hanging out and getting to know one another. On our way out I was thinking how cool it would be to be a "good" runner like they were and to have a group of friends to run with. So of course I was caught off guard when I heard someone say "so see ya next Sunday?". I don't think any of them could have known how much that meant to us. It made us feel completely at home and like we were truly a part of something.

Now 10 months later we still get excited pulling into the Skyline Tavern parking lot Sunday morning. Excited to catch-up with old friends and hopefully meet new ones. "

Each week it’s a mini getaway of adventure full of good times with friends and a killer workout that keeps them in top notch shape.  

It’s a reminder how important it is to use your child like imagination to come up with fun routes, loops, point to points and run them with some people who may become your new best friends.

Start your own weekly getaway in your town and invite some people to a new tradition.