TheFinalSprint.com - Track & Field, Marathons, Racing News, Training Advice, Elite Athlete Blogs, Interviews, Podcasts, Videos and More! - TheFinalSprint.com is the Premier Destination for Track & Field, Marathon, Cross Country, Olympic and Road Racing Enthusiasts.

Lead Stories: Sunday, September 7, 2008

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.

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

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

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

Comment on this post | Permalink