I’m going to stop posting on here for a long while. Possibly forever.
When I first started this site, my employer was the Annapolis Capital, a wonderful paper that (at the time) had no running or transportation blogs. Now, however, I work for the Baltimore Sun, which within the last year has launched both a wonderful transportation blog and, more recently, a very nice running section. Since these vastly outdo my blog in terms of quality and quantity, I’m happy to say that it’s now quite redundant.
That said, I’d still love to see you at a Friday meetup, as those will continue.
The sound of waves booming against the underside of ice in a frozen lake comes directly from childhood. With the memories of some great views and that haunting sound in mind, it is difficult for me to suggest this, but I’ll do it anyway:
You really shouldn’t use the walking/running route I’m about to describe, unless you want to get arrested, drowned and/or run over by part of Baltimore’s urban rail transit system.
That said, here’s the description, without culpability if you misuse it. After bicycling to Baltimore’s Robert E. Lee park (via Falls Road and Lakeside Drive), I decided I wasn’t up to taking a road bike on hilly trails — a good choice as this turned out to be a better walking route.
While I planned it as an uneventful walk, the circuit around Lake Roland ultimately involved crossing two bridges that were not safe (as one was a rail bridge and the other was structurally unsound). I highly discourage people from mimicking my route, and I’m only including it for informational purposes so folks know what to avoid. See map below and photos for more information.
One of the things that I like most about walking and running in Baltimore is the varied terrain. Baltimore is full of both large and small hills. Few places are those hills more appreciated than on the campus of Morgan State University, where they form a good chunk of the school’s identity.
The Morgan Park/MSU/Hillen route I chose goes down and up and down and up again, but never to any extreme measure. While Morgan State’s campus includes two pedestrian bridges — one over Herring Run and one over Cold Spring Lane — skipping the Cold Spring bridge lets one truly appreciate how much the hills add to the campus.
This 5K route goes through a couple of areas that could be described as rough, but I doubt that they’ll stay that way for long. A case in point: The largest building adjacent to the now-infamous Northwood shopping center, where City Councilman Ken Harris was shot, is slated to become a new building for part of Morgan State’s business school, according to a 2007 newspaper article.
While it’s true that the D.R. article linked above is now a year and a half old, I think it’s still quite likely that the project has some legs: Morgan State is growing so fast that three of the largest buildings on my route were shown on Google Maps as mere construction sites. Two of those sites overlook Morgan State’s distinctive red and blue track, which I was unfortunately unable to access directly.
This route might be a challenge on a bike, but for walking or running, it is recommendable.
Today’s new circuit is a hybrid of a loop and an out-and-back setup, totalling just over 6.2 miles. Within that distance, you’ll see one of Baltimore’s wealthiest neigborhoods, as well as one of its most blighted. The transition between the two is fascinating in itself, as you go from East Baltimore to Charles Village and back (or vice versa).
That statement is not meant to knock the East-Baltimore/Waverly neighborhoods. The spreading wealth of the Station North redevelopment will hopefully soon start making good on some of the promise this area holds. While that transition is in progress, however, you’ll probably want to take this route on a summer morning with a friend — not alone at night. (That, of course, is decent advice for any recreational run or walk, if possible.)
There are beautiful endpoints on this course, with a lot of pretty blocks along the way. Assuming you aren’t dying to clock some sort of super-metronomic 10K PR, the scenery is well worth the time you’ll put into hopping up and down at traffic lights. Check out the map. As always, you can find a bunch of other posts with mapped runs/walks/bikes in the Baltimore area here.
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Of note: This is a good route for runners and walkers, but you’ll find few bike lanes through most of it. This is a disappointment, as the area is in fairly direct proximity to several universities (Loyola/ND, Johns Hopkins and Morgan State are closest). That said, this loop is served by the route 61 and 13 buses, which should theoretically have bike racks now. That could at least make it easier if this area is part of a longer bike trip.
We just moved to Hampden, in the northern part of Baltimore.
It’s near a bunch of stuff including my workplace, a few farm markets, two grocery stores, JHU, MSU, Notre Dame / Loyola, an MTA light rail stop, two movie theaters, two public libraries in the Pratt system … etc.,.
Forgive me for sounding like a bad PR writer. I promise that this post should be the worst of my gloating.
Anyhow, almost as cool as all of the stuff I just listed is the neighborhood’s proximity to the Jones Falls Trail. I still have yet to explore the trail in full, but here’s a start — a loop through a bit of the neighborhood, including Druid Hill Park and the Maryland Zoo.
Check out the map to see details. Some of this may be slightly off, as I used an old city planning document to get the path of the JFT for my route map.
I’ve been doing a lot of interval workouts lately, but mapping individual track runs is pointless. Imagine: “I went around. And then I went around again! And then I went around a third time!! Guess what happened next!!!”
That said, there’s at least some relevant information I can provide after track runs: The collected locations and conditions of the tracks themselves. See below: View Larger Map
It’s just an iframe, so it’s not as web-special as my Baltimore food retailers map at baltimoregroceries.org — but it will have to do for now.
Polka and beer might seem like an odd backdrop for legions of health-conscious runners, but the worlds appeared to get along just fine when I jogged around Patterson Park this morning.
Granted, Baltimore’s 35th annual Polish Festival is more of a night affair. Even so, the closed-off street that resulted from the party suited a lot of pedestrians just fine. I counted 22 runners, hikers and dog walkers during my very brief time on the edges of the park. There were also bikers on the streets around the park, but they looked like they were actually going somewhere, so I didn’t count them in my leisure audit, so to speak.
It’s not just your imagination: Arundel Mills really is huge.
At 1.3 million feet, according to the owners’ site, it’s the second largest mall in Maryland. It was the biggest, until the mall in Annapolis, where I bought my copy of The Sparrow, opened an expansion in 2007. Development is following, with the BWI hotel district likely to eventually merge into Arundel Mills’ cocoon of big-box and small-box retailers.
That all adds up to a lot of teenagers and bored parents, which means an opportunity to jog around the perimeter of the parking lot shirtless, embarrassing your child, spouse or younger sibling beyond virtually anything else you could possibly do.
However, I am sad to say that I do not recommend this course of action. The parking lot perimeter lacks sidewalks and has guardrails in some place that are likely to bust a kneecap if you trip or swerve.
Instead, try running a few intervals around the pond near the AACC branch. It’s beatiful in most spots, and you’ll get a nice hill workout (see map — I’ve modified my route slightly to make each loop a bit closer to a mile). You could also enjoy walking this, if that’s more your style. It could be especially good for people with dogs.
Then, when you’re through with your running and stretching, there’s no shortage of places to eat. Assuming, that is, that your loved ones don’t chase their sweaty, heavily breathing, embarrassing family member away.
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Note: This could also be in very easy transit reach if they ever get around to building the MTA Yellow Line. Which is to say: Don’t hold your breath.
