Central Park - Great Lawn Oval

Back in the Cretaceous period, I remember the Warren Street used to do workouts at night around that oval, but no one I know even regards it as a track. It's hard paving stones, I believe. If there are 200-meter markers, they'd be in on the inside curb, but I've never looked for them.

There actually is a track in the northwest corner of the park, maybe around 105th Street. No one ever goes there except for an occasional school group. It's cindery and not all that great, but it's a track...which the thing around the Great Lawn is not.

not a great option due to dogs and their long leashes. I go there sometimes during the winter in the evening. That's about it. I didn't know about the 200m markers.

Yeah, I know it's not a track. If I could find the damn 200 meter markers, then I could possibly do occassional workouts after work ala the Warren Street people you described.

Re: The 105th street track:

Ah, that sucks. That was going to be my next stop.

The impetus behind my original question, as you probably could have surmised, is that I'm looking for a place to do an occassional interval workout that's close (Read: within jogging distance) from my apartment on the UES.

Yeah, I know it's not a track. If I could find the damn 200 meter markers, then I could possibly do occassional workouts after work ala the Warren Street people you described.

Re: The 105th street track:

Ah, that sucks. That was going to be my next stop.

The impetus behind my original question, as you probably could have surmised, is that I'm looking for a place to do an occassional interval workout that's close (Read: within jogging distance) from my apartment on the UES.

at night use the reservoir, its marked out very well, i think every 110y. the 105th track is 350 meters long, i used to do workouts tehre, instead of 7x4 i would do 8x350.

As a Warren Streeter then and now, my recollection was that the Great Lawn was a bit over a half-mile and there were markers. This was the early 80s. But it wasn't the fancy surface it is today but your standard paved path and we didn't have problems with strollers, which is probably not the case these days.

Warren Street does workouts at that cinder oval at 105th on the west side of Central Park. But then, as now, we did a fair amount of speedwork on the Park Drive itself as well. Then you could do lots of stuff up Cat Hill, but it's too crowded for that nowadays so we head to the Harlem Hills.

I used to do workouts on the track at the top of the great hill. It isn't great, the surface can be pretty pockmarked with holes and uneven in places, but it is quiet. Alot of the times I worked out there I could spend 45 minutes running and not see anyone else which is pretty cool when you are in the middle of manhattan. It's also lit, I ran there at 4:30am and 9pm with no problems.

One lap is over 800 meters but I don't know the exact distance. A group of us were doing a workout there in the early 80s and Rod Dixon was doing repeats around the oval. He asked us if we knew the exact distance around - we didn't. I think it's got to be closer to 900 yards, maybe even more. Before the 5th Ave Mile became an all-comers race they used to have 5th Ave qualifiers there and it was less than two full loops.

if you do a quick satellite viewing of manhattan you'll see a few tracks near UES

1. icahn stadium, but i donot know who has access to that place. there's a foot bridge on 103rd street that you can use from april to october to get on the island. so that's definitely within jogging distance. i do somehow recall reading an article talking about the Famiglietti running quarters on the track and bunch of high schooler who were also practicing there remarking how the guy can run a sub-4 mile. that & the fact that the city subsidized half of the cost make me believe the place should be open to public use...

2. the track @ riverside park (137th & riverside dr.); the quality of the track is just okay, but it is an 8-lane standard length track. no one knows how old the surface is as your shoes won't even get red after running on that track. the good thing is that there's a locker room in which to store your belongings. the place is one block from the 1 train stop at 137th. best of all, it's open til 11pm everyday.

unfortunately, the CUNY tracks that you see on 137th & st. nicholas has been razed... and the track you see on the LES is deceptively far from public transportation.

welcome to nyc. we really don't have any tracks that is conveniently located, but then again running on the central park asphalt sure has made me injury free...

They're conveniently located if you happen to live there. The East River Park track, around Sixth Street, was excellent last time I ran on it.

There's another track in Thomas Jefferson Park around 110th to 114th, something like that, around First Avenue, right near Rao's, the Italian restaurant no one can ever get into. The track was quite a hard surface last time I was there, but my guess it's been improved...that park was in the ING program to upgrade parks.

Measurement of Great Lawn Oval is 880m.