In my Sunday Training post, Mica left a question asking if I drive to all of the trails I run on, and how far away they are. After I wrote her a response, I thought it would be fun to ask all of you where you like to run, and how far you have to go.
Where do you prefer to run? On what kind of surface? How far do you travel to run?
[poll id=”26″]
I prefer to run on non-technical trails (usually crushed limestone). We live in Lake County, IL, and are surrounded by Forest Preserves with trails – see map below (click to see larger interactive map):
And… one is currently being built in our backyard! It will be 2.5 miles long when completed in fall of 2011, but will eventually connect to the Millennium Trail (purple trail in map above). The photo below shows where it will start, in our neighborhood.
The closest forest preserve to our house is 2 miles away. It takes between 10-30 minutes to drive to most others.
Does your city have a big trail system?
The forest preserves are probably the #1 thing I love about where we live – especially since they are building one so close to our house (our house is one of those in the top pic!). I am excited to watch it be built. You can expect to see progress photos!
Madison has a ton of bike paths and those kinds of “trails”, but I really love technical trails. It just changes the run completely and what I focus on during it! 🙂
I love running on well kept dirt trails. Not so much through the woods over logs and bushes, but on a dirt trail that is soft on the knees.
I clicked “outdoors-parks” in your survey but I rarely drive to a park to run. There are paved trails close to my apartment that go by lakes and one of those lakes is in a park so that counts, right? I almost clicked neighborhood because technically I suppose it is my neighborhood but it’s more parklike than neighborhood like.. hehe.
But more realistically, I do most of my runs in DC before work or during lunch. I suppose that would fall under “streets” but the vast majority of those runs takes place on the National Mall.
You are lucky to have so many options. We have a nice bike trail over here and the roads are not busy…but no forest preserves 🙂
Crushed limestone is definitely my fave– I feel so fortunate to have those good surfaces near me and it looks like you’ve got a fair share too 🙂
I chose “outdoors in my neighborhood” but only because of WHEN I have to run. The Wadsworth Savannah is 2 miles from my house (we live just off of Wadsworth rd) so I love to run there, but it doesn’t open until 6:30am (and frankly, I wouldn’t be comfortable running solo there in the dark anyway). But on the weekends when I can run later? I’m all over the DesPlaines River trail!
I wish the forest preserves opened at sunrise like how they “close” at sunset. Some morning I would be up early and want to head out there!
I love the Des Plaines River Trail! <3
I’m super blessed to be able to run where I am. M-Th, that’s downtown Chicago. F-Su, that’s Indianapolis. Both have great places to run and bike!
I’m lazy – totally in my neighborhood. I usually take so long to run and then cool down that I don’t want to “waste” much time getting to where I am running.
Now that we are losing daylight, I think I will have to do more running in my neighborhood to save on time too. And it’s the only place to run safely in the dark!
There are trails that you can run however they are not anywhere close to our house. Houston is not really set up for athletes… I feel like you have to go out of your way to actually be able to do some outdoor activity.
Where do I prefer to run? Shaded places with not much traffic. Where do I usually run? In the nearby neighborhoods. Really, other than sometimes driving the 1.5 miles to where my running group meets or the 3 miles to the track the only other place I drive to on a regular basis is the asphalt bike path through the forest preserves. It’s just so much easier to strap on my shoes and head out the door. Strangely, I rarely do that now that I run so much with the group.
I LOVE the trails around DC. Can’t complain, really. Hate running around neighborhoods and sidewalks, bores me to death 🙁
I love running on trails but there aren’t many close to my house so I just run outside on the road.. it’s not too bad and since I don’t live in the city, I can almost pretend I’m on a trail.. if I really use my imagination. 😉
I love this post, I’m always curious about how/where other people run – your trail system looks great.
At my old apt I was about a half a mile from the canal, which is crushed limestone, and in my fancy part of the city, a bit of sidewalk pavement as well. The canal links to a system that covers something crazy like 112 miles through the whole city. This is where I did almost all of my long runs training for my first marathon.
Now, I’ve been running more along the lake and greenbelt bc it’s a little closer (no driving required, a must for me). I’m about 2 miles from a good park with desert trail running, but I usually drive about a mile to get there, so that most of my time can be on the trail.
I remember when you used to talk about the canal trail! It looked like something I would like. And 112 miles of trails?! Would love that!
I live in an area with many trails although I dont feel safe running on them alone. I prefer the roads and streets near where I live. and also the track. love running at the track!
I picked outdoors in my neighborhood but also it would be outdoors on the streets too. 🙂 With limited sidewalk running. When I’m done running, I want to be done. I want to walk in my door and that’s it. Plus running already takes me time so I don’t want to have to factor in a 20-30 minute drive just to get some place for a run. That would add on an extra hour to my already longish workout!
That is where I struggle too – the drive time to get somewhere, especially now that we have less sunlight! 🙁
What a gorgeous path to run on! My shins just weeped in envy. I’ve been doing some pavement to trail to pavement running and it is amazing how you can feel the difference on your body.