Brice Creek - Trail Running with Friends

by Jodi

I first heard of Raina after I ran the Eugene Marathon with Carissa in April 2012.  She was a blogger.  A fast runner.  A mother.  A wife.  A follower of Jesus.  And she had quite an online presence and following.  Raina also ran Eugene that year so we exchanged a few emails about the marathon then swapped blog addresses and started reading each other's blogs.  A virtual friendship developed between us.  When one of us raced, we cheered each other on offering encouragement via email or blog comments.  We talked about meeting in person, but never followed through because she lives in the country outside of Cottage Grove - a good 2+ hours from my home in Newberg.  Our friendship grew over the last 2.5 years.

At the end of December, my brother Shane (who was visiting from Montana) and I drove down to Eugene to run to the summit of Mt. Pisgah.  We were down and back in a handful of hours.  Our excursion reminded me that Eugene really is not that far from my house.  I emailed Raina and we set up a date to finally meet in person.

Today was our day.  We met in Cottage Grove and then drove together to the Brice Creek trailhead in the Umpqua National Forest outside of Cottage Grove.  The weather was warm for a January day, topping out in the mid 50's.  We ran in short sleeves and were comfortable.  The single track trail through the mossy, lush, green old-growth forest paralleled Brice Creek.  It was so lovely!