Trail Factor Club

Trail Factor is Portland-area based trail running club. Join us for our weekly group run on Tuesday nights in Forest Park.
The club is free to join; just show up to the Tuesday night run and introduce yourself – don’t be shy.
Sometimes someone will organize a weekend group run. We like to help the Forest Park Conservancy take care of Forest Park. We volunteer at trail races and run races too. But mostly we are people who just like to run on the trails. We do, sometimes, talk about things other than trail running.

Tuesday Group Run

We meet every Tuesday, at 6:00 p.m., at the Leif/Thurman gate of Forest Park and starting running at 6:15 p.m. for 4, 6, or 8 miles. We do this year-round. Really. Dark, rain, snow, usually even on holidays. There are several regroup spots along each route. The routes are the same every week.  We rehydrate at the NW Quimby Lucky Lab Beer Hall afterwards.

Trail Factor Running Record

AKA “the binder“. Everyone can track their weekly group run mileage in the binder that is stored at the Lucky Lab. Yeah, it’s old-school. On paper, wow! There are “milestones” for cumulative miles (all time, it doesn’t start over annually) where you earn awards like stickers and even free race entries.
Miles Prize
30 Trail Factor sticker
75 Forest Park Conservancy pocket map set
100 You buy someone a beer/cider
200 Lucky Lab hat
250 Someone buys you a beer/cider
300 Lucky Lab tech shirt
400 Free entry into Portland Trail Series
500 Free entry into the Stumptown Trail Runs

The Golden Shoe Award

Keeping with our old-school vibe, we have an annual award that is given out to the person who logs the most Tuesday group run miles in a calendar year. There’s a plaque on the wall at the Lucky Lab with a golden shoe and each year a new nameplate is attached with the winner’s name forever on display. You can only win once, so more people in the club have a chance at this fame and glory.

Golden Shoe Winners:

2024 Christoph Kern
2023 Heather Nesheim
2022 Jay Wellik
2021 Jared Rose
2020 Casey Covid
2019 Harrison Holzgang
2018 Rick Kneedler

How to Connect

We have a private Facebook Group where we connect with each other about “stuff” and a Strava Club.

History

It’s a hotly debated discussion. When did Trail Factor start? Our beginnings were in the early-2000’s and credit to forming the group and the weekly run goes to Shawn and Jessi Bostad. Ruben Galbraith was also key in hosting our online presence with a Google Group (anyone remember that?). These people moved on and then Renee and Todd Janssen of Go Beyond Racing, along with some other key people who are still involved today, like Rick Kneedler and Gary Geist, started fostering and supporting the group more. Many from the club were very involved in the early iterations of Trail Factor 50K & Half Marathon race that is now called Stumptown Trail Runs 50K & Half Marathon.
The debate is ongoing, but we think we started in 2008 or 2009. Here’s a video that NW Dirtchurners produced about the club and its beginnings.