Training

Running in Manhattan

August 16, 2009
By Michelle Kempton

For those of you new to this blog, when I started running last year, I decided to give myself a reward on my 1 year anniversary… running through Central Park in Manhattan.  Click here to read original post.

Luckily for me, 3 of my close friends agreed to come along with me.  Setting a wake-up call for 6:30am the first day on our vacation in New York City definitely tested the true strength of my friendship with Gina, Kat and Sarah.  The girls were real troopers and I think I felt a tear in my eye when all of us were ready by 7:30am!  The girls knew how important this experience was for me and words can’t really express how much appreciation I have for them wanting to be a part of this experience. 

I’ve always wanted to live in Manhattan.  My goal was to experience the feeling of what it’s like to be a New Yorker.  Get up in the morning, run through Central Park before starting a busy day.  Surprisingly, I still felt like a tourist (and probably looked like one too)!  Though the park was nice to run in (especially since everyone keeps their dogs on leashes)… I have to say my favorite run in Manhattan was actually running down Broadway.  They have a running/biking path and instead of taking the subway back to our hotel we just ran the 15 blocks.  I liked the energy of the city, constantly needing to be aware of your surroundings and watching for dangerous obstacles like cabs in intersections and red lights! 

Kat and I had a good laugh one afternoon when a New Yorker stuck in traffic shouted out to us “Yummy” as we ran by… I think he meant it as a compliment!

Next time I’m in New York I’ll definitely run in Central Park again… though I’ll probably take the train to the Northern point of the park and then run back through the entire length and also I’ll run through each of the burrows (Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, The Bronx, and Brooklyn - hopefully with a tour guide)!