Best and Worst Places you ever trained

best-Rockford, MI

Worst-Starkville, MS

Best: Lake Proesser, north of Truckee CA

Worst: Warner-Robins, GA

Best Year Round: Los Gatos, CA. Can be pricey to live there, but you have a great trail system right out your front door and a 16 great all comer meets per year, split into winter and summer seasons. It can be pricey to live there, however

Best Seasonal: Royal Gorge Ski Area: North America's largest cross country ski resort, elevation 7000 feet, hundreds of miles of trails.

Worst: I hesitate to put anything here. I've never stayed anywere where the running was too bad. I did stay in Norcross, GA for a week, but it was January and I was not running much (in recovery mode from a marathon). I lived in San Angelo, Tx. That place didn't seem like it would be too fun to run in, but I was pretty confined to the air base while I was there. My hometown of Turlock, CA, isn't the greatest either, but I know plenty of people that enjoy running here.

I have to add to the vendetta against the outer banks, nc.

The best place I have run was in Sullivan County, PA...nothing around for miles, a good escape from busy life.

Another expressing disdain for the outer banks. I suffered through runs one spring break in the Kitty Hawk/Kill Devil Hills area. It was so humid, I didn't have one good run.

Best place I've run: Flagstaff.

Best: Alamosa, CO 7500+ FT, Flat, Dirt Roads and Trails, close to Mountain Trails.

Worst: Hmm... Not sure. One resort near Dallas north of the DFW airport was not the greatest...

BTW..

Vegas at 5am is not that bad. (Before meetings)

Tampa - people was not very friendly

Munchen, DE - English Gardens Very Cool!!!

New York City - Central Park, Central Park, Central Park

Northern Colorado Springs - Awesome trail that follows the train tracks into the Air Force Academy.

Miami - before sunrise works

Plano has a nice concrete path system.

DC - C&O Canal Trail.

Frankfurt, DE - Along the river works.

Hinterzarten, DE - great trails

Denver - 5am was very creepy...

I agree. The Des Plaines River trail is awesome.

Best: Manitoulin Island in northern Ontario, 5 hours from Toronto. It has miles and miles of gravel roads, clean air and very few distractions, and no traffic. I could easily run 100 mpw if I lived there.

Worst: Bridgetown, Barbados. There are lots of fumes, no sidewalks, lots of cars and a lot of humidity.

not a bad race wrote:

Best: Manitoulin Island in northern Ontario, 5 hours from Toronto. It has miles and miles of gravel roads, clean air and very few distractions, and no traffic. I could easily run 100 mpw if I lived there.

Worst: Bridgetown, Barbados. There are lots of fumes, no sidewalks, lots of cars and a lot of humidity.

I ran in Bridgetown Barbados one time. I actually had a business trip to Barbados in 1998. Nice place. I remember running at large park that had a cricket field.

Worst: Singapore - hot, humid, cars, cement, fumes, wall to wall people and stray cats

Best: Vancouver, BC - Pacific Spirit Park at UBC to be more specific

The very best ... .. . .

Huautla de Jiminez, Oaxaca, Mejico. Try some of the local

mushrooms that Mr. Leary enjoyed before you run and you may

never stop. Be prepared for about 6500 feet altitude and trails built to give you calf burn; but no worries, the 90 year old ladies walk up and down them with a load of timber on their heads constantly and likely have a resting beat of 40.

Worst is Mejico City. Ran around Chapultapec Park in about 76

and blew soot out of my nose for three days. Aside from that,

it was pretty cool.

MAYEROFF wrote:

I ran in Bridgetown Barbados one time. I actually had a business trip to Barbados in 1998. Nice place. I remember running at large park that had a cricket field.

Jason, I got stuck downtown and didn't want to get lost. You may have gone to the University of the West Indies, where there's an oval. That's a pretty nice area for running.

Barbados is a beautiful place, but not all that conducive to running.

Got any races coming up?

I didn't think Harrisburg was bad.

Worst: LA(location), Houston(climate)

Best: Flagstaff

GR wrote:

Best: Kennesaw, GA; Glen Spey, NY

Worst: Houston, TX; Miami, FL

Where in Kennesaw? I am in Atlanta and desperate to find a decent place to run!!!

Thanks,

best: Mammoth, CA

worst: Bakersfield, CA ....the west side. flat as a mother f ing pancake plus the air quality is the 3rd worst in the US.

Kennesaw National Park, Exit 269 off of I-75... hundredes of miles of wonderful trails

Coach B, what year did you graduate from Turlock High?

Best: Oxford, UK. Could be hillier, but a fair amount of scenic dirt running along water. The roads aren't so bad either, but I don't run on them much besides getting between trails.

Worst: Probably Annapolis, Maryland. Hardly any dirt trails at all. Some good hills if you know where to go, and the B&A trail isn't so bad. It's boring, though. Really not a bad place to train and I'm going back, I've just been spoiled.

easy out wrote:

GR wrote:

Best: Kennesaw, GA; Glen Spey, NY

Worst: Houston, TX; Miami, FL

Where in Kennesaw? I am in Atlanta and desperate to find a decent place to run!!!

Thanks,

You may also want to try the Silver Comet Trail in Smyrna...it's one of those rails to trails, so it is all paved (not really a good thing, but you can run on the side of the paved portion if you want to run on grass). Not very challenging but awesome for pacing workouts b/c it is so flat and there are rare street crossings. It's about 35+ miles long and the miles are marked pretty well (although at funky distances...look on the ground for spray painted mile points up to 10 miles). I used to do all of my marathon super-long runs on there. Trees line both sides of the trail the whole way.