Best running cities in US

Best Running City Has Got To Be Davis, CA. Close Enough To The Bay For The Views And The Trails, Close Enough To The Valley For Some Healthy Superfoods, And Close Enough To UC Davis Where I Chug With My Boys. Also Davis HS Pumps Out Some Real Running Talent, Like Fiona O'keefe And Michael vernau And Nicholas Borowsky (who also swims). Not To Mention Their Reputation For Journalistic Excellence®

Birmingham Alabama, by far the best running city. The area around the Crossplex are superb, ran a mile to the end of the street saw a dead dog and turned around. Wadeline Johnathas approved.

Toronto. 10s of miles of ravine trails easily accessible to downtown, publicly accessible tracks, lake front paved trail (though I don't like it), some strong running clubs.

Con's: in winter the ravines are iced up so most take to cemetery running (which I don't like), and I've found road races inferior to the States -- more expensive, shirts they give out (if any) are of lower quality, and they just don't have the same pop generally (often don't have the whole road closed down, etc.).

Davis, CA wrote:

Best Running City Has Got To Be Davis, CA. Close Enough To The Bay For The Views And The Trails, Close Enough To The Valley For Some Healthy Superfoods, And Close Enough To UC Davis Where I Chug With My Boys. Also Davis HS Pumps Out Some Real Running Talent, Like Fiona O'keefe And Michael vernau And Nicholas Borowsky (who also swims). Not To Mention Their Reputation For Journalistic Excellence®

If I'm living somewhere, i don't want to drive 2 hours to do a long run on trails.

Yeah but wrote:

Davis, CA wrote:

Best Running City Has Got To Be Davis, CA. Close Enough To The Bay For The Views And The Trails, Close Enough To The Valley For Some Healthy Superfoods, And Close Enough To UC Davis Where I Chug With My Boys. Also Davis HS Pumps Out Some Real Running Talent, Like Fiona O'keefe And Michael vernau And Nicholas Borowsky (who also swims). Not To Mention Their Reputation For Journalistic Excellence®

If I'm living somewhere, i don't want to drive 2 hours to do a long run on trails.

+1 to this. I spend a lot of time in Davis and I'll be honest it sucks for running. Flat as hell, no diversity (trails/roads, not politics). Only thing going for it is that it's close enough to Sacramento (which has one of the best running/race communities around) and the Sierras. But you gotta drive to get to the mountains.

I'd say Sac is pretty damn high on my list because of the huge number of very well organized races (SRA and Capital Road Race Management - any race put on by them is put on for runners). American River parkway for long runs. Weather in summer sucks though.

Can someone expand a bit on San Diego?

There is a chance we may move from NYC to SD at some point within the next year or two, and I'm wondering how/why running is good there (beyond the weather aspect which I realize is quite perfect year round!).

More specifically, I've always thought of Marin County, CA or even the mountains around LA/Malibu to be perfect running scenery, but I don't know SD as much.

I've run along the water there (San Diego), but that wasn't great (and if I recall, not asphalt but rather concrete). What are some good running grounds for EVERY day type of running? (for example in NYC Central Park has dirt/packed sand trails).

For non-everyday running, I understand there are some quality trails outside the city is that right? I've visited La Jolla and it's gorgeous, but I couldn't tell the running would be great. Interested to hear more about proper trails (but not quite ultra type of terrain...something rolling and a bit quick I guess). Does this exist? If so how far and how much of a pain?

I really want to enjoy the idea of moving to San Diego, as my wife may need to relocate for work. Somehow I am not convinced, yet on these boards the consensus is that it truly would be a great choice for running, maybe even better than SF.

Head being scratched wrote:

Who are these people who believe that there is a lot of "diversity" in these huge left wing enclaves where virtually everyone thinks and votes the same?

and what exactly do you consider 'diverse'?

Reading Breitbart doesn't make you diverse, it makes you retarded.

Yes, don't come to Portland! We don't need anymore Richard Craniums!

elviejo wrote:

Yeah but wrote:

If I'm living somewhere, i don't want to drive 2 hours to do a long run on trails.

+1 to this. I spend a lot of time in Davis and I'll be honest it sucks for running. Flat as hell, no diversity (trails/roads, not politics). Only thing going for it is that it's close enough to Sacramento (which has one of the best running/race communities around) and the Sierras. But you gotta drive to get to the mountains.

I'd say Sac is pretty damn high on my list because of the huge number of very well organized races (SRA and Capital Road Race Management - any race put on by them is put on for runners). American River parkway for long runs. Weather in summer sucks though.

You can get some good miles on Davis farm roads. Compared to the rest of California it’s pretty bad, but I’d say it’s better than a lot of the Midwest (minus hills). It gets way too hot in the Sac area in the summer for either Sacramento or Davis to be considered good running cities.

Old retiree in the Valley of the Sun. You can't beat the winter months and late fall/early spring for Phoenix. Superb trail running not to far from downtown. A short drive from the metro and you can have the desert all to yourself.

For the summer months you better like treatmill running or a 4:00 am early morning run. It's tough down here in the summer but I'll take the great winter running season over that stinking cold New England where I used to live.

For me it's the running culture here that makes it a great running city. For as much flak as NYRR gets, I think they're great and frankly any other major city in the US would be lucky to have a clone of NYRR in town; it gives a lot back to the city's runners. The club scene here is great and builds out solid depth in the local running scene. The Washington Heights 5k a week and a half ago - a rink-a-dink $23 5k way uptown - had 152 people go sub 18 and 370 sub 20. You don't get that in many places.

I love prospect park as well, great loop with some solid hills and way less crowded than central park. Can go long on the rivers too, it's a great place.

To the people complaining it's too expensive...get a better job. The cultural perks of living here far outclass anywhere else in the nation, that's truly not even close.

Definitely no straightforward answer here. It really depends on the individual runner's preferences and ability to train in certain climates/weather or what kind of culture you want. I've had the chance to run and train all across the country and I'd say my top five places/cities (in no particular order) are:

-Boulder, CO

-Flagstaff, AZ

-Washington D.C. (honestly, NoVa as a whole is solid as long as you can get past the traffic)

- Western North Carolina (Asheville/Boone area in particular and as far east as Charlotte)

- Austin, TX (if you don't mind the heat)

Tell It Like It Is wrote:

John Utah wrote:

Nope. John Utah is a character from the movie Point Break. Not Mormon, not from Utah.

It's not "John" Utah....it's "Johnny" Utah. The film makes that pretty clear - he's never once referenced as "John" Utah. ?

https://youtu.be/1wJZk426FKM

Since there's probably a million Mormon guys named "John" from the State of Utah, your call sign fit the bill.

John Utah is the name on his movie birth certificate.

So, this is a common practice, changing your surname to reflect your state of residence? Not familiar with this practice.

I am spilling the beans: Oakland, California FTW. Next door to Berkeley = unbeatable combo for a city. Checks all of the boxes: trails, running scene, diversity, weather, culture, urban, races, clubs, food, progressive, educated and so on.

A Dogs Dawg wrote:

PNW'd wrote:

You fool, what have you done?

Spill the beans buddy

Smoove wrote:

Former Floridian wrote:

Some summers I would purposely wait every day to run during rain storms bc that was the only times you would see temps in the 70s.

I cannot count the number of times that during my two fall marathon cycles that I was sitting at my desk, saw the clouds rolling in for the almost daily afternoon thunderstorms, and rushed to get changed and sneak out for a run just to get the cooling effect of the rain.

You know you’ve got a problem when you will risk getting struck by lightening just to run in cooler temps.

sentient being wrote:

I am spilling the beans:

Oakland, California FTW. Next door to Berkeley = unbeatable combo for a city. Checks all of the boxes: trails, running scene, diversity, weather, culture, urban, races, clubs, food, progressive, educated and so on.

A Dogs Dawg wrote:

Spill the beans buddy

The whole city and area is a mess. Please stay away. Especially Redwood Park, Joaquin Miller Park, Rockridge, Lake Merritt, Montclair and Piedmont - those are active riot zones and would be under martial law if we didn't have such a liberal mayor. North Berkeley and the Berkeley-Oakland hills are also horrible. Can't find anybody cool to run with. Please help us!

sentient being wrote:

The whole city and area is a mess. Please stay away. Especially Redwood Park, Joaquin Miller Park, Rockridge, Lake Merritt, Montclair and Piedmont - those are active riot zones and would be under martial law if we didn't have such a liberal mayor. North Berkeley and the Berkeley-Oakland hills are also horrible. Can't find anybody cool to run with. Please help us!

"Oakland ranks highly in California for most categories of crime. Violent crimes including assault, rape and murder, occur from two to five times the U.S. average"

Yikes.

Denver.