NYC 20 Milers

I grew up outside of New York City, so for me, when I think about what running through the city is like, I categorize it into three buckets.

• Short runs in any given neighborhood (mostly uneventful)
• Running in Central Park
  • A category in and of itself because Central Park is awesome, and there’s always some new nook and cranny to explore there
• Long, exploring runs through the city
  • Keep reading…

Katy and I are running a marathon in June, so when we decided to travel back to NYC to visit my sister and my adorable new niece, we schemed to somehow fit a long training run in during our trip.

The result was one of the best tours of the city I’ve ever had.

We started out the morning by grabbing a subway down to Spring Street, where we unloaded and began our run.

The streets on the Lower East Side were empty as we made our way east towards the Williamsburg Bridge. New York City is the city that never sleeps, but it’s definitely not awake at 7AM on a Sunday morning.

As we crossed the bridge, we saw other runners and our first feel of the day’s heat, as we were no longer shaded by buildings. We were at about mile 3 of 20, and we could feel it was going to be a hot one.

We weaved our way through Brooklyn, past yeshivas and the navy yard, down Jay street, and then backtracked a bit to get on the Brooklyn Bridge. For the next two miles, we were in the traffic cluster that is a beautiful, touristy day in lower Manhattan.

Crowds swarmed, and Battery park was under construction in many places, but somehow we made it past the crowds and onto the Hudson River Greenway. Finally! From here it was a straight-shot back home to Hudson Heights.

The next 10 miles we joined the runners, bikers, families, roller bladers, skateboarders, and dogs as we ran along the greenway past all of the cities western piers. You almost forget how huge NYC is when you’re on the green way.

Once we passed 86th street or so, the greenway thinned out, and as did its crowds. The George Washington Bridge started to come into view, providing a clear objective to aim for.

We had one final adventure in finding a way to cross the Henry Hudson Parkway, but after we finally did, we enjoyed the only real hill of the run as we got to the highest point of Manhattan and called it a day.

21 miles–and a beautiful run through a ridiculous city.