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Lead Stories: Saturday, November 22, 2008

Top running routes in Boston

Posted June 13th, 2007 at 4:15 PM by Warwick Ford

Section: Running & Training, Columns, Fun on Foot

Warwick Ford is a guest contributor to The Final Sprint and author of “Fun on Foot in America’s Cities” and “Fun on Foot in New England,” the books that describe and map the best on-foot routes in U.S. cities. Check out FunOnFoot.com for more information and to purchase the book or maps.

boston running routes fun on foot warwick ford thefinalsprint.com Boston is a city of the young (the region is host to way more than its fair share of the nation’s top colleges) and the young at heart. This makes it a dream city for running, jogging, or walking. There is a massive foot-mobile population, so if you feel like a jog almost anywhere here you will rarely feel out of place.

However, wise choice of route always makes a run or jog more enjoyable and easier to embark upon and finish. For a training or recreational route to be motivating and enjoyable, the Fun on Foot model says it needs to have four attributes: Comfort from both the safety and underfoot perspective; Attractions to make it interesting; Convenience to city center and public transit; and a worthy Destination to help motivate you to finish the route.

In “Fun on Foot in New England” we applied this model to Greater Boston and came up with 13 excellent routes. Narrowing this down, here are the very best routes that are just too good for any outdoor exerciser to miss:
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Top three running routes
in Dallas, Texas

Posted February 28th, 2007 at 2:12 PM by Warwick Ford

Section: Columns, Fun on Foot

Warwick Ford is a guest contributor to The Final Sprint and author of “Fun on Foot in America’s Cities,” the book that details and maps the best on-foot routes in 14 major US cities. Check out FunOnFoot.com for more information and to purchase the book or maps.

Big “D”, Dallas, TX, seems much more a place for automobiles than for pedestrians. If you asked the average person here what was the most important thing he did with his feet, he would say hitting the accelerator and the brake. Nevertheless, Dallas does have a thriving subculture of on-foot enthusiasts. There is a keen running community and a few really good trails convenient to downtown. The DART bus and light rail system can help you get to and from these trails, making it possible to plan exercise outings without using a vehicle at all.

The weather is excellent for running in October through April, with good temperatures and only a small risk of precipitation ruining your outing. In the other months, average maximum temperatures move into the 80s and 90s, meaning you might want to go to extra pains to fit your outdoor exercise in early in the day. In this short article, we shall look briefly at the very best of those local on-foot routes.

For a training or recreational route to be motivating and enjoyable it needs to have four attributes:

Comfort from both the safety and underfoot perspective;
Attractions to make it interesting;
Convenience to city center and public transit; and a worthy
Destination to help motivate you to finish the route.

Applying this model to Dallas, we came up with the following three winning routes:
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Top three running routes
in San Diego, California

Posted January 28th, 2007 at 2:00 PM by Warwick Ford

Section: Running & Training, Columns, Fun on Foot

San Diego, famous for its beaches, zoo, Navy and Marine Corps bases, sea craft, and golf, is also a winning place for on-foot exercise for various reasons. The main one is the weather, which is recognized by many as the best in the U.S. The average daily maximum and minimum temperatures lie within our preferred range of 40-to-80 degrees every month of the year. Furthermore, on average, there is precipitation on only 42 days per year and 41% of days are brilliantly cloudless. Add to that some gorgeous seaside scenery, historic sites to make runs interesting, and a low violent crime rate, and you have arguably the nation’s most pleasant location for year-round running.

For a training or recreational route to be motivating and enjoyable it needs to have four attributes:

Comfort from both the safety and underfoot perspective;
Attractions to make it interesting;
Convenience to city center and public transit; and a worthy
Destination to help motivate you to finish the route.

Applying this model to San Diego, we came up with the following three winning routes:
Read the rest of this entry »

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Top three running routes
in San Francisco, California

Posted December 27th, 2006 at 7:00 AM by Warwick Ford

Section: Running & Training, Columns, Fun on Foot

Warwick Ford is a guest contributor to The Final Sprint and author of “Fun on Foot in America’s Cities,” the book that details and maps the best on-foot routes in 14 major US cities. Check out Warwick’s site for more information and to purchase the book.

There are two things that make San Francisco a place where running outdoors is irresistible. The first is the set of scenic routes resulting from the city’s location on the Pacific Ocean and the enormous natural harbor and associated waterways that constitute the Bay. The second is the weather. The monthly average maximum temperature lies between 56 and 70 degrees year-round and the monthly average minimum lies between 46 and 56. Therefore, weather is unlikely to dampen your enthusiasm for getting outdoors for a run.