Best places to live for soft surface running

Ohio

The Moon

I moved to Mt Hoka a couple months ago.

Ever heard of California? It is going to depend on exactly where you live of course, but my last place I never ran a step on asphalt when running from my house, except for the first 150 yards to get from my door to the path.The city I live in now has 4 parks with dirt paths of 5+ miles. The largest park has a longest loop of about 10 miles, all dirt.

benman92 wrote:

I currently live 5 minutes form the ohio towpath, buckeye trail and a bunch of metro parks that have soft bridal trails.

What are some areas that have year round warm weather and trails and paths for long distance soft surface running

OP lives in Ohio...probably couldn't afford CA.

I think peat bogs in Scotland/ireland would be good.

What are the best places in CA, i'd be able to afford it as long as it's within reason.

Ocean City, NJ. Miami. OP, beaches are the obvious answer here.

benman92 wrote:

What are the best places in CA, i'd be able to afford it as long as it's within reason.

I live in the bay area. All the surrounding areas have extensive Parks and trails. For example, Oakland has redwood park, chabot-garin, huckleberry park, etc that all would allow for 10+ mile loops. Some loops in there are much longer and the redwood park system links to the backside of Castro valley. That one way trail there would be up to thirty miles without touching asphalt, could turn that trail into a forty miler with maybe one mile of asphalt.

A short drive adds additional trails ten minutes north (somethingerather canyon, another reservoir I cast remember the name), ten minutes south (lake chabot park up to 14 mile loop, or links to redwood park in the backside, Hayward shoreline is eight perfectly flat dirt miles, etc)

South bay isn't quite as extensive, but also lots of running opportunities compared to most Midwest areas I've visited.

Pull up Google maps, turn to the map view where Parks are green, and look at the hills that are just inland of Oakland. Lots of green on the map along a forty mile stretch of hills.

North bay (Marin area) also has tons of some of the best hill running in the world, IMO, but a but pricey to live there.

Sacramento is cheap but if you live near the American river, you could run twenty miles in either direction on dirt. Kinda hot in the summer there though and a lot of bums on those trails.

Central coast is also incredible for running, but not much work opportunity there. San Luis obispo, Santa Barbara, Monterey area would all be incredible places for a runner to live if they had a career that allowed them to live there. You're talking average summer highs of 80 or a bit under, morning fog to keep your runs nice and cool, then very mild winters typicallly above 55 in the daytime.

benman92 wrote:

What are the best places in CA, i'd be able to afford it as long as it's within reason.

Look into Sacramento and it's suburbs. Lots of unpaved trails up around Folsom Lake and the Sierra Nevada foothills. Reasonable cost of living considering it's in California. Excellent temperate climate and minimal annual precip (especially this year) mean trails are runnable 24/7/365 (and rarely muddy). Good running community.

Also good urban running within Sacramento core itself. Lots of great large parks for loops (http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/05/best-city-parks-systems-america/2052/)

Don't recommend the Bay Area unless you have serious cash reserves. If you don't live in exactly the right place getting to a trail often involves crossing bridges, battling insane traffic, not to mention the horrendous cost of living. Sacramento is a better option and way fewer snobs up here anyway. Best kept secret in CA and the hip city life has improved a lot here in the last 10 years. Summers have a few hot days, but mornings/evenings are always cool.

Scotland. It's always pishing it down and it's pretty wet. Really really soft and a bit sloppy.

The moon

Ohio

[quote]fpole wrote:

OP lives in Ohio...probably couldn't afford CA.[/quote/

That doesn't make a lot of sense based on where in Ohio he lives. Lebron James estate is probably a few miles away. I wonder if Lebron can afford California? The whole State...

When you say a large running community do you mean people who are decently regular/serious about it?

lol, the median sales price for LeBronies neighborhood is like $130,000 (Fairlawn, OH).

OSU Sucks wrote:

[quote]fpole wrote:

OP lives in Ohio...probably couldn't afford CA.[/quote/

That doesn't make a lot of sense based on where in Ohio he lives. Lebron James estate is probably a few miles away. I wonder if Lebron can afford California? The whole State...

What are you talking about? I can't think of a place in the bay area that doesn't have trails nearby. San Francisco has the presidio or golden gate park or even sand path on crissy field... marin literally has hundreds of miles of trails nearly everywhere... berkeley and oakland have hundreds of miles of trails in the hills... south bay as well. Why would you ever 'need' to cross a bridge to get to trails? To get to better trails perhapsthe bay area is expensive for a reason. it is a desirable place to live. around mt. tam has some of the best running options in the country - within 20 miles of downtown san francisco

golden boy golden state wrote:

Don't recommend the Bay Area unless you have serious cash reserves. If you don't live in exactly the right place getting to a trail often involves crossing bridges, battling insane traffic, not to mention the horrendous cost of living. Sacramento is a better option and way fewer snobs up here anyway. Best kept secret in CA and the hip city life has improved a lot here in the last 10 years. Summers have a few hot days, but mornings/evenings are always cool.