How do people deal with living/running in big cities?

I live in Philly and I'm really close to the Wissahickon Trails. Perfect for running, very pretty, not that crowded. I don't know how people in Center City Philly or Manhattan put up with it.

well, if you live by Central Park or Prospect Park, you do have to get used to running virtually the same loop every time. Which can get old, but the ups are that the running community is so strong.

In HS you have a built in team. When you are graduated...you are on your own. If you live in the sticks, there just aren't enough people to make up a running community. In NYC there are thousands of people on teams, and hundreds of very serious runners. Plenty of people to run with.

Amazing but unheralded fact - the NYRR has to cap most races at 5,000, a couple times a month. A 5000 person race in most places would be astonishingly large. here it happens twice a month.

To me the real tough running situation is the suburbs - running with cars, on narrow roads - I hate that. You can never relax. On trails and in many city parks you can completely relax and just run.

The only time I've ever felt threatened when running was on a rural country road. The drivers out there aren't used to runners, and every drunk redneck sees you as a target with a "purty" mouth. No thanks.

The suburb I live is great for running. I live in a planned community that has 14 miles of running trails including portions of it around a lake. Our community hooks into several other planned communities so if you want you can run for 30-40 miles. Probably explains why we have some of the best runners in the state and nation. Who runs on the roads in suburbs?

I agree fully with Dartmouth Graduate. The first thing I say if my wife talks about living in the country is, where would I run? You can go one direction or the other from your home on the shoulder of a road with no sidewalks. I live in the middle of a small city and have so many options,There is park 600m from my house, I can do loops on the sidewalk that are 0.88miles, I can do a smaller loop in the park that is .53miles. I use this for tempos and intervals. I can run all over town for easy efforts. There is a beautiful hilly park with ocean on 3 sides. I can do 2.5 mile loops or I can cut through it during an easy run. There is an old railway turned into a crusher dust path that will take you from the center of town 100 miles into the country. This is just the tip of the iceburg. This doesn't include running tracks at the universities close to me.

dartmoth graduate wrote:

The only time I've ever felt threatened when running was on a rural country road. The drivers out there aren't used to runners, and every drunk redneck sees you as a target with a "purty" mouth. No thanks.

suburbs are nice wrote:

The suburb I live is great for running. I live in a planned community that has 14 miles of running trails including portions of it around a lake. Our community hooks into several other planned communities so if you want you can run for 30-40 miles. Probably explains why we have some of the best runners in the state and nation. Who runs on the roads in suburbs?

I'd say that's the exception, not the rule.

A High Schooler wrote:

Living in a rural place is much less of a hassle. And the scenery is beautiful. Cities seem to be ugly, crowded, dirty, and a huge pain to park, drive anywhere, or run. Why would anyone want to live in a big city?

OP, you are correct. Cities are by and large cesspools for cowards who are too afraid to leave. Nice insight.

Some areas of some cities are nice to run, same for suburban and rural areas. It probably depends more on the particular area than whether it is classified as urban, suburban, or rural.

agip wrote:

well, if you live by Central Park or Prospect Park, you do have to get used to running virtually the same loop every time. Which can get old, but the ups are that the running community is so strong.

I can run loops all day. I run because I like to run, push myself, train myself, and challenge myself. I like to run unimpeded. I don't run b/c of the scenery.

agip wrote:

To me the real tough running situation is the suburbs - running with cars, on narrow roads - I hate that. You can never relax. On trails and in many city parks you can completely relax and just run.

In my California suburb the roads are wide, all have bike lanes, sidewalks, large shoulders, landscaped medians, and traffic is light when I run at 6am. Pretty relaxing. Plus there are plenty of huge city parks with trails, both paved and unpaved, nice grass fields, trees. And then there is also a massive state park nearby with hundreds (if not thousands) of miles of trails. All of this within running distance of my front door.

Dense urban grids are generally far worse for running. Crowded sidewalks, double-parked cars, heavy traffic, almost get hit every time either at intersections or hidden parking garage driveways, filth/trash everywhere, only paved surfaces. Talk about never relaxing. Sure, if you have a place like Central Park, you can run there (though you have to somehow get there first), but overall I much prefer my suburb when it comes to running.

I have five loops that I mainly do, but my runs are interesting and don't get old since I piece parts from each together sometimes or run them in reverse. On occasion (i.e. once per every few months), I'll run up/back on a grid - basically, I'll head about 0.7 miles south, move one street over, and head north. It's a good way to run roads I've never hit before and get hills in.

However, living in a city means I'll never do a challenge like "run all the streets". I read about one person who did that and didn't feel unsafe at all...she lived in Vernon Hills, Illinois, a wealthy northern suburb of Chicago that's about 85% white and Asian. I used to live in Baltimore, and there's no way in hell I'm running through Sandtown Winchester, let alone with a watch and phone.

Ever heard of having a car? I just drive to trails to run on, completely eliminates the possibility of getting hit by a car, especially when running on single track trails.

Just run, Baby.

ideally every runner would live at 2000 metres, with a track and lots of hills.

in a city you have to make the best of a bad job. i run up fire escape stairs in high rises, 50 floors, 2 or 3 times with a break in between. i jog to the shops and to any errands I need to run if they are within 15km or so total distance. treadmill and elliptical are used when the pm 2.5 pollution is bad.

As long you dont drink the water in rural areas you should be okay. Pollution is much higher due to agriculture, chemicals, etc and lower standards or quality and enforcement. You can get away with burning waste or dumping waste into waterways in rural area but not in cities

ruralhealthresearch.org

Water Quality Issues in Rural-Urban Areas: The Good (Fluoridation), the Bad (Chemical Pollutants) and the Ugly (Health Consequences): Rural Health Research Project

The Water Quality Issues in Rural-Urban Areas: The Good (Fluoridation), the Bad (Chemical Pollutants) and the Ugly (Health Consequences) is a rural health research project funded by the Federal Office Rural Health Policy.

Link:www.ruralhealthresearch.org/projects/6...

The running that matters most for almost every runner is where they can get from their doorstep. The only people I know who do most of their running on trails (not bike paths) either live running distance from them or run like twice a week, and never at night.

Now that it has been 9 years since “a high schooler’s” post, do you think he’s figured out that cities are where the jobs are by now?

Or he has a job where he can work from home and moved out of the city. Reminds me of Tracy Chapman and Fast Car