Mt. Tabor Hill Workout - Portland, OR

Things just seemed to work out this year and I was able to make a trip to Portland to visit my family over Christmas. So after leaving Victor around 2pm on Friday, Reba the Jeep and I drove the 5 1/2 hours accross the spud state to Boise where I was to catch a 8:30 flight to the City of Roses. I'll bet it'll be raining. Mmmmmmmmm, I can taste that thick marine air already... It felt great to be on my way there.

I arrived. It was raining. I was not surprised. My parents picked me up and we stopped at McMennimins at Edgefield so I could have dinner. Yum-yum, after a Ruby Ale and a mushroom-swiss dungeon-burger with fries, I was all set! Welcome back to Portland Me! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... Sleepy now... We went home and after briefly chatting some more with the parents, I was happy to crawl right into bed with Ms. Rubyale and Mr. Mushroomswissburger cozied up inside me listening to the rain hit the window. Ahhhhhhhhhh... snuggly. = )

Saturday Morning: Pancake breakfast at home, then a brief shopping excursion to the neighborhood shopping center for a couple final gifts, then it was running time! My parents took off on a jog around the neighborhood. I decided I'd drive to Mt. Tabor, my favorite park in Portland, to do my favorite butt-kicking sea-level hill/interval workout. It was raining.

This is my route

The first set of stairs is the longest. It is broken up between many "landings" and a few road crossings and it has over 200 double-spaced steps. It takes about 2 minutes to reach the top.

Near the halfway point on the first section of stairs.

Continuing up just past the halfway point

Still going up! There is a smooth gravel path near the top and then the final ten steps to the top. Ugh, I haven't done a high-intensity hill workout in a very long time and by the time I got here, my quads were burnin! But I like it like that so it made me happy and I wanted more. Get some!

There were a number of runners, dogs, walkers, squirrels, and bike riders out enjoying the cold, drizzly morning. I love seeing everyone out there! From here, I dropped off the south side of the summit loop and began my snaking 8 minute descent to the lowest part of the loop at the bottom of the west side of the butte on 60th Ave.

This is about halfway down to the bottom. These gently graded roads around the water reservoirs on the butte provide nice moments to stretch out the legs and lengthen the stride and there are some nice views of downtown Portland along the way. It was still raining.

After reaching the lowest point on my loop, I turned alongside the lowest reservoir briefly, then turned up this steep set of stairs that actually ramps up at the top and gets steeper. This is looking down from the top, but you can see where they begin if you follow the path down and to the right to the little square building alongside the reservoir. This is the second interval and it comes about 11 1/2 minutes into the loop. There are 48 double-spaced stairs and it takes about 45 seconds to reach the top. Because of the steepness, this one is BRUTAL! Yes! Gimme some more...

"...Ok, how about another hill, you masochist." This one comes about 2 minutes after finishing the last one and also takes about 45 seconds. At the top, there is another minute of gradual uphill, then it's an easy 2 minutes of slight downhill to the beginning where I'd go directly into another loop beginning with the long section of stairs again. Each loop took 18 minutes. I was having so much fun playing in the park running stairs in the rain that I did four laps! La-dee-da-dee-da! Sick...