Runs
Sightseeing on the Run
Running tours offer a new way for fit-minded travellers to soak up the sights of a city.
January 12, 2009Customization is the word
Anker says running tours offer visitors “a better feel for a city,” whereas bus tours “are much more generic, and can’t be customized as easily or accommodate stops as easily or changed on a whim.” Customization and flexibility seem to be the operative words with most of these running tours, giving them a competitive advantage over both bus tours and large group walking tours. Mostly, the customization is about time, speed and interest.
At Quebec Jogging Tours, owner Dominic Menard says, “people may have 45 instead of 70 minutes and want us to cut some time off the tour.” There are those who either go faster or want to walk from time-to-time, so they “adapt to each runner,” says Menard. Sometimes, people want to stop to catch their breath, he says, while others push us to go a little faster. He recalls one extreme runner once asked to be taken to a challenging spot, so, on the Plains of Abraham route, he took a little detour to the Escaliers du Cap-Blanc, “the longest and highest stairway in Quebec City, linking the Lower City with the Upper City with over 400 steps.” This is the place, says Menard, “where local athletes go to really push themselves.”
City Running Tours starts with about a dozen standard routes, which they will customize upon request so “every run is just a bit different,” says Gazaleh. One of the company’s tour guides, Coleman Feeney, recently took me on a customized run through Central Park and I loved the fact that I could set the pace, stop when I wanted and was able to soak up a little local culture to boot. I got my run in, experienced a destination that I wouldn’t have seen on my own, and learned a little about this iconic park.
Who takes a running tour?
City Running Tours sees a wide variety of clients from recreational to competitive runners, and from teenagers to retirees. He says clientele is skewed a bit more to women because of the safety and convenience issues. “People don’t want to think too much about it, they just want to run,” he says. He has also worked with corporate groups of up to 80 people, breaking one large group into several smaller groups according to desired distance, level of fitness and interests.
Running tours also appeal to those who get their exercise from fast walking, and Gazaleh says, “we’ve even had runners with jogging strollers and dogs.” Sometimes they’ll have someone training for a marathon who needs to get 18 miles in, and the company will accommodate such requests.
Anker sees her tours first and foremost as “fitness events.” She says they do welcome walkers to join the tours as well, but “they need to be able to walk at least four miles.”
Menard says the male-female ratio on the Quebec City tours is probably 50/50, and as for the type of runner, it’s almost a half-half again on quick versus leisurely. “We’ve had physical education teachers, boxers and ‘hard runners,’ but we’ve also given tours to new runners, slow runners – even youngsters,” he says. To their surprise, the main clientele hasn’t turned out to be the business/convention people they had originally thought would be attracted to the tours, but couples coming to run together, and also a few families with children. They have also seen more locals than expected. “These people heard about us through local media and were curious about discovering their city in a new way,” says Menard. He acknowledges, however, that peak convention season may tip the balance more toward the corporate market. According to Richard Seguin, spokesperson for Quebec City Tourism, “Quebec Jogging Tours has added a completely new dimension to discovering this great city of ours.”
Anker adds that runners can run hard every day of the week when training, run in all kinds of races all over the country, “but a running tour is a time to have fun, a time to explore, and a time to meet other runners.”
