Column by Joe Hansen, Outdoors Editor

For several months I had stuck to a regular routine.

Most days, I would hop in my truck and drive 4.1 miles to John Topits Park at Empire Lakes, jog one of three routes I have that are between two and three miles, then drive 4.1 miles home and shower.

Then my old friend Jon told me I’m an idiot.

“Why would you drive somewhere to run?” he asked when I was visiting him in Eugene a while back.

It’s a good point.

Now, Jon is a running nut. He rarely misses a workout. Last year, he ran the Eugene Marathon with a broken foot. He’s one of those guys. He told me if I can’t go out my front door and run, eventually I will start slacking and quit.

I had to accept that this was true. In fact, it would be quite easy for me to quit jogging, because I hate it. For a guy my size, it’s a painful, humiliating activity. Sometimes I don’t know why I do it, although since I started running regularly four months ago I’ve lost 14 pounds, tightened my belt by a notch and I don’t wheeze as much when I go up multiple flights of stairs.

When I went hiking with a friend recently, I was pleasantly surprised by my fitness. She was impressed. Walking uphill, as it turns out, is a lot easier when you train by running uphill.

So I decided to take Jon’s point to heart. For the past month I’ve tried more and more to walk out my front door and start running. Problem is, the door to my apartment is in an alley in Coos Bay.

Outside my door I’m greeted with an industrial view, concrete laced with green and an alleyway that serves alternately as a wind tunnel and stormwater drain. Right off the bat I run up the alley, sending my neighbor’s dog into a frenzy. My neighbor’s dog needs help. He’s one of those poor K-9s that suffers from paranoia and social anxiety — he barks at slight breezes, so you can imagine how he reacts to my lumbering form.

There are some nice neighborhoods on the hill, and that’s where I head, making one of several loops. The runs I do in town get my heart pumping, but not just because they’re hard. No, it’s exciting because somehow, some way, drivers in Coos Bay can’t seem to see my 6-foot, 3-inch and I’m-not-going-to-tell-you-how-many-pounds body.

Often I stand in crosswalks around town — you know, the ones with solid lines where drivers are legally obligated to stop for foot traffic — and watch a half-dozen cars drive by without stopping. Then, one will stop. I timidly enter the street, but the car in the other lane won’t even slow down, which I guess is understandable since it’s being operated by someone who’s simultaneously driving, smoking a cigarette and talking on a cell phone and just doesn’t have time to deal with things like pedestrians.

Eventually, traffic in both directions will let me by, usually with one or both of the drivers glaring at me for having the audacity to try and go anywhere in this town by foot.

Also, I think guys in big trucks like to come as close as possible to hitting me without actually doing it. They zoom by and I eat their exhaust. It’s a hoot, I tell you.

So next time I talk to Jon, I’ll tell him he can run on the streets of Eugene if he wants, it being Track Town USA and all, complete with extensive pedestrian infrastructure and conscientious drivers. In Coos Bay, I’ll run in the park.

So on Wednesday, I drove 4.1 miles back to John Topits Park, took my regular spot and ran off into the quiet and lush trail system there. Before too long, I passed another runner, who smiled warmly and waved.

It was good to be back.