Best running town in Texas besides Austin ?

I hate the heat in TX, but here in Ft. Worth we have tons of miles of running trails paved and unpaved (finely crushed rock on dirt). Even after a rain the unpaved is typically runable. Google up Trinity River Trails. Lots of different access points, some new porta-potty stations being permanently emplaced, or plenty of wooded areas in places if need be. Some water fountains at different places (but turned off for periods in winter). Even in the more isolated areas I've never run across safety issues personally nor heard of any from other runners. Ft. Worth Running Company and Luke's Locker, local running shoe stores have lots of group training runs too.

Waco has the potential to be a great place if there were a group of runners to benefit from. Cameron Park has some nasty hills and several tracks available for speed work.

Good location being in the middle of the State and same distance from Austin to Dallas.

Not Dallas. Unless you like traffic and pavement.

Go with one of the small towns in the hill country...plenty of hills, plenty of country roads, very little traffic, low cost of living. Might be too close to Austin for ya tho. IMO the only good part of Texas is the hill country.

Hungry Hungry Hippo wrote:

Not Dallas. Unless you like traffic and pavement.

Go with one of the small towns in the hill country...plenty of hills, plenty of country roads, very little traffic, low cost of living. Might be too close to Austin for ya tho. IMO the only good part of Texas is the hill country.

Yep. The woodlands and spring area are not bad. The summers are not good for running. The hill country is the best TX has to offer.

Boss says I'm heading to Texas wrote:

Austin is already taken. Any other fun towns with good running ?

San Antonio.

Houston, no question

Anywhere other than DFW and Lubbock. San Antonio would be my pick if Austin wasn't an option. Never been to Houston, but it seems like too much of a swamp.

How is New Braunfuels ?

Lubbock, easily and for many reasons.

The Woodlands is amazing-- a little bit white bread and cookie cutter, but they take pride in the outdoors and having a clean community.

The Woodlands wrote:

The Woodlands is amazing-- a little bit white bread and cookie cutter, but they take pride in the outdoors and having a clean community.

"A little white bread and cookie cutter" cannot by definition be amazing. I feel like I walked on the a set of The Stepford Wives.

Lubbock would have less humidity but few trails ?

I hope the reply about Houston was a joke. It's a miserable city, with training potential equal in proportion.

Waco: a few good places to run, but not a lot of options, so it can get old pretty quickly. Cameron park has lots of trails and killer hills, but all the trails other than the main one that runs along the river are just too hilly, rugged and winding to put in a significant portion of your mileage on imo. You can't maintain any sort of decent pace on most of them. Some of the areas fairly near to Cameron Park that you can run to /in via the roads are pretty good(running by the Brazos to the BU campus area and around there, or out the other end of the park around the community college), but beyond that there just isn't much there that's really safe and/or runnable.

San Antonio: way more options than Waco mostly because it's much bigger, but it also means you may have to drive a lot farther to get where you wanna run if you happen to live in an area that's less viable for running straight from the house. McAllister park is great with lots of paved and unpaved trails, and there also are local groups that do a 14 mile loop from it out through surrounding neighborhoods every weekend. There's a new paved greenway trail/bike path that's really nice in that area too. You can get in some good running in the downtown area near the riverwalk etc., and a lot of the neighborhoods and such out in the stone oak area are very good for running (and often very hilly). I live out north of town and can run out through my neighborhood into stone oak and access some dirt roads, paved trails, and a couple schools/tracks from my house, depending on how far I run. Enough safe and runnable roads for me to go as far as I've ever wanted to straight from my house and vary my routes (at least on the longer runs) as well. But other areas likely aren't so easy to run in, depends a lot on where you live. There are also several running stores that have weekly running groups. Humidity sucks and is worse than that in Waco, DFW, etc., but I think it also tends to be slightly cooler than central tx in the summertime.

Houston: don't know much about it, but the weather seems like it would be pretty gross/humid.

Hill country: a lot of the small towns out in the country do have lots of nice dirt roads you could run on, but variety might be a little lacking, and I don't know if they'd be an option given that you're moving for work.

Part of the 47% wrote:

The Woodlands wrote:

The Woodlands is amazing-- a little bit white bread and cookie cutter, but they take pride in the outdoors and having a clean community.

"A little white bread and cookie cutter" cannot by definition be amazing. I feel like I walked on the a set of The Stepford Wives.

You have to see it for yourself to understand.

What are some good towns in the Hill country ?

Is humidity bad there as well ?

Houston has very good racing (best marathon, but a very slim on elite runners at other race), lots of running clubs, great weather from October to April, dismal weather from May to September, Memorial park has a 3 mi dirt trail with showers at a tennis center which is great for people commuting to work from the burbs, more trails are being built along bayous with plans to connect most of the bayous for hundreds of miles of trail and parks. On the other hand, getting time on a track at a local high school can be hit or miss, lots of concrete (including some new and redone trails on the bayou), very few trails inside the city in the woods and there is the potential on almost every day of the year to have a warm 70 degree and humid morning to wreck your big race.

Dallas/FW does not have a very good marathon, but has some good shorter races with B level elites (Turkey Trot, etc.), running club scene is not as big as Houston (not sure why that matters, not a big club runner myself), summer isn't as humid as Houston, but is just about as long and can get weeks of upper 90s to 100 deg temps, spring and fall are nice, but winter can get below freezing and can be rainy, Trinity river is nice for running, but does not do much outside of FW, White Rock is nice, but stinks if you throw your back out at mi 3.5 (it is a 9+ mi loop), forcing you to walk 3.5 mi back to your car in pain, Katy trail is nice if you live intown, but lacks amenities and is full of cyclists.

San Antonio is not good at all for such a large city. Austin has shirts and bumper stickers that say "Keep Austin Weird". I once saw one in San Antonio that said "Keep San Antonio Lame". San Antonion does have some different terrain and good hills in parts of the city but does not have any really good trails inside the city. Racing scene is pretty terrible. Very few good races. The marathon got taken over by RnR. Weather is similar to Austin, but can be a bit more humid as they can better catch a flow off of the gulf.

Mike Leach wanted out wrote:

Lubbock would have less humidity but few trails ?

Summer running in LBK is beautiful compared to DFW/Austin/Houston. It's typical desert type weather but the slight altitude keeps it from getting extremely hot. The mornings are always cool and crisp, some days you'll almost want a jacket. At dusk it'll still be 90 but you'll barely sweat.

But yes, as a running town it's not good. Very few trails, one hill, windy during the spring.

Abilene.