Best and Worst Cities to run in when traveling

Worst: Osaka

Best: Asmara early in the morning

Orlando (esp Disney) has to be among the worst - flat, boring, often hot, everything is paved.

Philly is one of the better ones. Fairmount Park, largest city park in the world, is only a mile from downtown, right up the Ben Franklin Pkwy. 8.4 mi. loop of the river where you can race crew shells out practicing, or head to Belmont Plateau for some wicked hill work. You can also continue north a bit and hit Wissahickon Creek trails, awesome packed gravel carriage path.

in summer i went backpacking in spain and portugal. i was starting my winter trianing and did 40 mins most days with no worry of pace or how i felt etc.

as we travelled about i ran in all sorts of towns. mainly in 2 0r 3 hr wait for trains etc.

it was great. i saw sides to towns my mates would never get to see waiting at train station.

in bilbao there is a good river

in vigo it was shit. full of people in town centre and i got lost and nearly missed my mates. luckily my dodgy spanish got me back to trainstation

in algarve it was way too touristy but i did some runs on beach that was different.

in madrid there was a great pack that would have been 30 mins walk from sol. but instead i got there in less than 10mins run. brilliant. tucked away no seemed to know about it apart from locals. a highlight

Johnston wrote:

Spoken like a true tourist. The Paris region extends for miles beyond Boulogne and Vincennes; the 16th and the 11th are definitely not the "outskirts" but hold some of the best Paris has to offer. And I've done some pretty fast up- tempo work in the Luxembourg gardens, which sit at the epicenter of the city.

Though the Paris region extends for miles beyond Boulogne and Vincennes, Paris does not. Vincennes is not technically in Paris at all, but some other commune/city/township (I think it is St. Mande)

I agree with you that the outskirts are great, and have some of the best to offer. My caveat did not reflect my personal view, but rather the fact that I suspect my interest in the outskirts is a decidedly minority position.

Also, although some do run in Luxembourg, I don't myself consider it a suitable training locale.

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico can not be beaten for being a HORRIBLE place to run.

Paris is really a pretty good place to run. Three things; Run early (before 8 a.m.), watch out for cyclists, and follow the rivers and canals. The Canal de l’Ourcq has separate bike paths and pedestrian paths, start at Villete Park and it is ~15 miles one-way. There is a pedestrian and bike path from the Bois de Boulogne to Versailles which is ~10 miles one-way. The best run in Paris is Sunday mornings when they shut the Quais along the Seine to traffic.

My vote for the best: Cape Town. Beaches, flat runs, hilly runs, clean air. Great run: Trail to Leeukop. Stupidly difficult run: Trail to the top of Table Mountain (take some money for the cable car down, you'll need it).

London is good, better now the traffic has been restricted.

Terrible place to run: Birmingham (the one in England).

Forest Park, located in the City of St. Louis is the second largest city park in the United States behind Central Park. It's only a few minutes from downtown, and has a six-mile trail circling the perimeter along with wide open streets all through the park. It's a beautiful, very well-kept park.True though that downtown seems to shut down early, although it's getting better.

You won't find me in St. Louay wrote:

I had a conference downtown in St. Louis and it was awful. I was able to run to and from the park with the arch, and do laps around that park. That was about the best I could do. Combine that with the tens of thousands of panhandlers and the fact that the entire downtown area I was staying at seemed to close at 2:00 p.m., and I'll never be back.

Good: London, DC, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver

Bad: Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami, NYC, Oklahoma City