Yesterday started off shitty – i mean SHITTY. I am storing some of my stuff in a friend’s basement in Brooklyn, and when i went over, he told me there’d been some water damage to their kitchen, and they’d had to replace the whole floor. The basement is under the kitchen. However, he hadn’t really looked through his stuff (or mine), and when I got there, discovered that a lot of my stuff was ruined- water had gotten it (when the leak had happened a few weeks prior and mold had grown. Some stuff can be replaced, but one of the damaged things was an enveloped containing art prints I’d been collecting from various illustrators – some from a trip to Berlin. Needless to say that kind of darkened my day. But I was excited because I knew there was a barefoot clinic going on by the Barefoot Running Meetup group in Central Park.
Alas, I arrived a little tardy and they had scooted off already, but I decided as long as I was there and it was such a gorgeous day, I’d run Central Park barefoot!
I’d run Central Park many times before in shoes, but barefoot makes everything new again!
Reservoir: the reservoir is a popular running spot (well, as is all of Central Park). It’s funny that I couldn’t really remember what surface it had (with shoes, who notices!) but when I got there, I found it was a crushed rock path – but the rocks are so small it registers almost like sand on your feet (without so much sinkiness as sand). My feet definitely got a workout!
Bridle Paths: the bridle paths are made of the same surface as the reservoir. You can run barefoot down them for an interesting experience, but they have slightly bigger rocks, which you have to watch out for. But I prefer:
THE LOOPS
Besides all the paths, there is a “main road” that runs down the west side and loops up again on the middle east side. That’s the loop I used to run on when I lived on the upper west side of New York. The terrain is a little varied – some flat, a gentle downhill in places, then (if you’re doing a loop), an upgrade on the east side as you climb to 72nd street where you can cross over. To my great delight, I found that this path is literally FREE OF DEBRIS! It is SMOOTH. I had been having a little trouble dialing in my stride and form as of late, but once I got going on this, suddenly everything CLICKED! I had a really satisfying run, and went even further than I’d planned.
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