Saturday, April 18, 2009

Off the Beaten Path


Speaking of which, while tons of people are comfortable just doing loops in Prospect Park (and an adventurous few even use the transverses), keep in mind that, well, it's a park! Lots of trails and paths and places to go.

For example, take the above picture. A beautiful path. Where does it go? Don't get tied to mileage - veer off the loop and find out (the entrance to this path, by the way, is near the Prospect Park Zoo.). If you're planning to run the 3.35 mile loop in 30 minutes - keep the watch on and run 30 minutes, but just take the random approach. Who cares where you go. After all, to quote Buckaroo Banzai, no matter where you go, there you are.

(I will note, with some irony, that I took the photo as I was in fact doing a loop of the park!)

2 comments:

Daniel said...

Why, I ran that trail for the first time this very morning, as a little spice for my winding through the transverse back to the loop drive. It's got a lot of soft bark mulch on it, so it's like running on a futon. And it's insanely beautiful right now, with lots of green undergrowth to either side.

I plan to follow your advise and run random trails for the next week or so, just for bliss.

Brooklyn Runner said...

Thanks Tantris (awesome opening photo for your blog, BTW). There's a lot out there, especially if you run the transverses and start darting around -- if you plunge off the road and head directly up the hill from the lake (use the existing paths that have been created to prevent additional erosion, and do it rather than the switchback), you can get a great workout.