Austin sucks for running. Hoot and humid as %#+#. Town lake is ok the first 20 times but gets old. It also smells like crap - literally. Bat crap.
Austin sucks for running. Hoot and humid as %#+#. Town lake is ok the first 20 times but gets old. It also smells like crap - literally. Bat crap.
The best running city in America is Asheville, North Carolina. Some places in Western NC may be even better, but don't qualify as cities.
San Francisco is a great city for running, other than the hills. Golden Gate Park is bigger than Central Park and has great trails to run on. You can add, directly from the park to Sunset Boulevard, which has some annoying stops, but it is all dirt, for three more miles, to Lake Merced, a flat, concrete 4.5 mile loop, great for tempos. Land's End trail is also easily accessible from the bottom of Golden Gate Park, which gives great views with a nice, soft surface. Crissy field is beneath the golden gate bridge, with flat, hard dirt, great for repeats/tempos. Then you can always get an awesome long run in...Start at crissy field, ad run across the Golden Gate Bridge-can be crowded, but it is only a mile and a half long, then head straight up into the Marin Headlands for breathtaking views of both the city and the Marin Headlands itself, easy to get long in gradual hilly, soft surface running for miles and miles. In San Francisco there is always something to see, and good places to run, as long as you can deals with the freaks and a**holes you see along the way.
NYC is flat out god awful.
New York Bum wrote:
traveling man... wrote:Don't agree with you two at all. NY City has Central Park and that is it, and that gets old fast.
New York City has 100 miles of traffic free running including trails and plenty of public tracks.
Right, and you can barely get by the hobby joggers, pedicabs, wandering and lost foreign tourists, and the largest number of mentally ill urbanites in the western world. Is this your idea of fun?
Carmel, Indiana
I heard that Portland has some running culture.
Running would be a priority, but not top, definitely want somewhere livable as well. By cities I did mean large places, but doesn't have to be giants like NYC, Boston, etc.
I'm from San Diego, and I highly recommend it for running. Just be sure to stay on the coast; it gets way too hot for running inland. I moved to NYC for college and think it's okay. Do not move to Manhattan if you're injury-prone. If you can deal with the concrete, you can get some really good training in here. That said, you can get a good run in at a lot of places. There are a lot better places than NYC to train, but unless your name is Rupp, you probably aren't basing your life around running, and NYC makes a lot more sense for most people's careers than Bend Oregon or something. Live your life, and run to the best of your ability wherever you can; PR's will follow.
Love,
Dan the Fish
San Diego by a landslide.
Perfect weather, lots of trails, ... never mind it's awful here.
Austin?!. wrote:
Austin sucks for running. Hoot and humid as %#+#. Town lake is ok the first 20 times but gets old. It also smells like crap - literally. Bat crap.
Then why are there people running everywhere in Austin?
You could make a case for Naperville, IL...
-Chris Derrick
-Neuqua Valley High School
2007 Nike Cross National Champions - boys
2009 10th place Nike Cross Nationals - boys
2010 12th place Nike Cross Nationals - boys
-Naperville North High School
2008 3rd place Nike Cross Nationals - boys
2005 4th place Nike Cross Nationals - girls
2012 15th place Nike Cross Nationals - girls
2013 13th place Nike Cross Nationals - girls
2014 4th place Nike Cross Nationals - girls
-North Central College (NCAA Division 3)
Cross Country (men)
16 NCAA Team Championships
15 NCAA Team Runner-Ups
7 Individual NCAA Champions
111 All Americans
Track&Field
10 Team National Championships - men
54 Individual/Relay Champions - men
475 All Americans - men
189 All Americans - women
15 Individual/Relay Champions - women
Dan the Fish wrote:
I'm from San Diego, and I highly recommend it for running. Just be sure to stay on the coast; it gets way too hot for running inland.
+1 San Diego.
However, while it can get hot inland during the late summer, I would point out that is where one is going to find the better running. For one, you get a lot less traffic, much cleaner streets, and some great views. Miramar Lake is great for flat (uninterrupted) tempo workouts. The 56 bike path provides a nice 20-mile out and back.
It is also where all the best trails are. PQ Canyon offers good flat routes that I've even seen Meb using recently. It also connects with the whole Poway Trail network, which, in turn, is part of the 140-mile Sea to Sea trail (from the Salton Sea to the Ocean). Mt Woodson is an ultra runner's heaven for hill repeats. Blue Sky, Iron Mountain, Black Mountain, and Lake Hodges are just a few other trail routes.
Seattle. Every other neighborhood there's a huge park with trails and views that make you feel like you're in the wilderness, hours away from the city when you're only 10-20 mins away from downtown. And then 2 hours from the city, there are even more trails and wilderness and stunning views and islands and old growth forests. It doesn't get too cold, it doesn't get too hot for the most part. It's always perfect running weather. Even when it rains, for the most part it's a drizzle, esp. under a trellis of forest and trees. I do miss the crunchy leaves of a fall day on the East Coast though.
If you are in downtown SD there is a lot of grass and adjacent dirt trails in Balboa Park. The sidewalks/bike lanes are pretty big and empty.
I also see Meb training at Mission Bay/Fiesta Island.
La Junta, Colorado -> Ask Tabor Stevens
San Diego. Weather and ability to run everything from beach to >6k ft elevation. Good local races and overall strong running scene. Plus, aside from the running, it's an overall great place to live if you can afford it.
> You could make a case for Naperville, IL...
Naperville is not a "city", it's a big suburb of Chicago. And it's flat.
Not that it's a terrible place for running, but if people are going to add suburbs and outlying towns this can get really ridiculous. For example, why not add Concord MA. That gives you huge amount of country roads, trails, and the ability to cap your run with a swim in Walden Pond.
Naperville is a city, look it up. You can be a city and suburb at the same time, it doesn't have to be one or the other. Naperville is nearly 40 minutes from Chicago. Naperville is not the same as Chicago.
Why not add Concord? Because your only support is that it has trails and a pond...something that thousands of other cities have, including Naperville.
Twin cities, MN. Look em up!!