Last year I sadly said goodbye to my New Hampshire home, friends, and running club to travel across the country to Boise, Idaho. It was hard to get torn out by the roots, but if I had to leave, at least it’s to a milder climate and a different type of spectacular natural beauty.

Boise lies on the old Oregon Trail, along both sides of the beautiful Boise River. It sits in a perfect sweeping valley, protected from extreme cold by mountains to the north and west. It is dry here. Many people refer to the climate as “high desert”. At 2,700 ft., it’s not as high as Denver or Santa Fe, but there is enough altitude to make an old runner like me short of breath on the hills. The burning lungs went away after a short time, but I still claim it as an excuse for my slow plodding runs.

Moving in the middle of a pandemic wasn’t something we had planned, but before everything came undone last spring we had put all the pieces into place with no choice but to follow through. I might have gone crazy through extreme social isolation were it not for my new running community. It’s a funny thing about runners. We are everywhere, and we welcome strangers with open arms and grueling repeats.

The Boise Area Runners (BAR) hold several group runs every week, including trail runs, a track workout, and Greenbelt runs. Every run has a social component afterward, whether at a coffee shop (morning) or a brewery (evening). As I’ve been here this year and the local meeting restrictions have eased, there are more and more runners showing up for each run. There is almost always someone of similar pace, but if not, no matter, you’ll still get as much social time afterward as you need. There are several other running groups in The Treasure Valley, but BAR is the biggest and most diverse in its purpose. 

The Treasure Valley, as I mentioned earlier, is a place of spectacular beauty in a dry, deserty kind of way. There are big rivers and lots of water for irrigation, but it doesn’t rain much all summer long. Beautiful foothills abut the city, and you can run for miles and miles on the sandy trails. After a short distance you are up above the city and scenic views abound. Or, there is the Greenbelt, a 25+ mile paved path along both sides of the Boise River, open to runners, bicycles, skateboards, scooters, etc. It can get crowded around the downtown sections on weekends and lunch hour, but once you get out of town it’s pretty much clear sailing.

The Boise area hosts many races, one of which is billed as “The Toughest Half in the Northwest.”  That would be the Race to Robie Creek, which starts in Boise, goes up over a gap in the foothills and down the other side to finish at the eponymous Robie creek. Like Covered Bridges, people come from miles around to run, but the field is limited to a few thousand, so it fills up fast. I was able to run it as a virtual race last week, and true to its billing, it was the toughest half I’ve ever experienced. The course goes steadily up for 8.5 miles, and gets very steep (think Mount Ascutney steep) by the end, and then goes down down down until the finish. If the uphill doesn’t trash you, the downhill will.

Now it is spring again, and hopefully there will be more races this year, both in New Hampshire and here in Idaho. But wherever a runner ends up, it’s nice to know there will always be a running community, large or small, here or there, to give a warm welcome.