Saturday, May 9, 2009

Running at Red Hook Track

Was looking at some of the other blogs, and came across this thread, which talks about safety questions at the Red Hook track, and what time of day is best.

I'm not there all that often, and my runs at the track have tended to be solo, either in the morning or middle of the day (depending on my work schedule). I've not experienced any safety issues, though at least one of the routes I take to get to the track can go through some dicey areas that I might not do alone at night. I will say that most of the time I've gone, I've been the only one there.

So, figured I'd post the question. For those of you who run at the Red Hook track - any issues? Any precautions?

Let me stress, it's a beautiful track (albeit wind-exposed), and for those of you this part of Brooklyn, should be a destination for your workouts. Like pretty much anywhere else in the city, I'd urge caution running alone in the late-night or wee hours (a time that's almost blissful to run, but necessitates an increase in the awareness level).

Thoughts? Comments?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I got excited when I saw this post because I've been wondering about this quite a bit lately. Then I click on the link and saw that you'd linked to my own comments on another blog! How funny.

Thanks for your input on it though. I'm getting the impression that hitting the track one morning a week would be just fine. Maybe this will be the week I actually check it out for myself.

Brooklyn Runner said...

My personal opinion is that it's fine, as long as take the precautions that you'd take anywhere else. But it certainly doesn't have the same kind of people-traffic as does other tracks. I'm hoping some other folk can weigh in on their own experiences to provide some perspective.

A post last year discussed running in Prospect Park in early morning hours, and generally, the sense was that people felt safe. May not be the case here, or may be.

Anonymous said...

I've run there in the evening and never had a problem.

Chocolate Mussolini said...

It's directly south east of a large group of projects, but it's entirely safe as long as you use your head: don't leave valuables unattended (although, why are you running with valuables in the first place) and be mindful of your surroundings. It's not totally empty in the evenings, when there are generally groups of runners (teams practicing, etc) using it. I think it's fine.