Just south of downtown Portland lies a longtime hub of the running community in Portland: Duniway Park and the adjoining Terwilliger Parkway.
Duniway Park was named for suffragist Abigail Scott Duniway, who was Multnomah County’s first legal female voter (1912).
The park has had a popular track since the 1970s. In 1995 Nike helped the city resurface it with rubber from 20,000 old shoes. It has since been resurfaced two times. In 2016–2017, the city and Under Armour made substantial improvements to the park and track, adding a turf field and reconfiguring the track to make it a standard 400m. oval.
The track is surrounded by trees and track-level lighting for nighttime use. Bleachers along the track are great for changing your shoes and shooting the breeze with fellow runners. There are public bathrooms here, too.
Parking is limited here, so runners often park elsewhere and use running to the track as their warmup.
Duniway track is located at the intersection of SW Sheridan Street and Barbur Boulevard. Lots of runners use the neighboring Terwilliger Parkway to add hill work or otherwise extend their run.
The Terwilliger Parkway is a multi-use path separated from traffic alongside Terwilliger Boulevard. It is hilly, shady, and offers occasional breathtaking views of the city and our nearby mountains.
Most runners consider the start of the parkway the intersection of Terwilliger and Sam Jackson Road. To get there from the track, ascend one of the trails heading southwest through the Duniway Lilac Garden.
From the intersection by the gas station, the Terwillger Parkway extends 2.5 miles south to SW Capitol Highway, and another roughly half-mile to the path's end at SW Chestnut Street.
Truth be told you can actually follow Terwilliger Boulevard for another 4+ miles; when you reach the Lewis & Clark College Law School the path diverges from traffic once again for a pleasant leg past Tryon Creek and in to Lake Oswego.
Click here for a map of Duniway and its environs.
-Allison Cook & Ryan Heal