Run PVD

A little over a year ago, I learned to enjoy exercise for the first time in my life when I started running. In the city. That second part deserves to be its own sentence because running in the city was a crucial part of a major lifestyle change, and the setting was equally as important as the activity. If I had taken up running in a gym on a treadmill, on a track at some park or school, or even out in places like Lincoln Woods or the East Bay Bike Path, I doubt I would have gotten as deeply absorbed and committed. I finally learned to love running because it’s not just exercise. It’s leisure, recreation, a hobby, alone time, social time, peace and quiet, fun and excitement – really anything I need it to be in a given moment, and that malleability of purpose and mood is due in large part to the urban environment in which it happens. Running in the city is a lot like the city itself: it can provide you with whatever you need, as long as you know the right place to go.

And I go a lot of places running, even though I don’t go running in a lot of places. I run almost exclusively in and around Providence. There are those who prefer environments that are less crowded, quieter, more hospitable to runners (and safer). Not me. While I understand and appreciate the merits of peaceful surroundings in which one can break into uninterrupted strides while appreciating the majesty of nature, I much prefer dodging traffic, coming to a screeching halt at intersections, hopscotching over potholes, weaving through crowds, negotiating uneven sidewalks – hell, even breathing in that unmistakable city air. It makes me feel as much a part of the city, as eating its food, soaking up its culture, or writing about it for a magazine.

It has always been my belief that the best way to get to know a place – particularly a city – is to do so on foot. I was never a runner, mind you, but I was an avid walker. Not a power walker. I didn’t walk specifically for exercise, but rather just to walk. To explore. To navigate. To experience. When I briefly lived in Boston about ten years ago, and I didn’t know anyone or have the money necessary to really enjoy the amenities of a fairly expensive city, I walked. I would just head out of my apartment and walk, alone, sometimes for hours at a time. To this day, I can still navigate Boston more skillfully and deliberately on foot than in a car.

Providence, of course, is a city that I already knew quite well, but running gave me the chance to rediscover it, to navigate it in new ways, to experience it in a different context. That sense of discovery – at times even of wonder – hooked me on running as much, if not more so, than the health benefits. When you’re running through a city you need to be in rhythm with it much more than during most other activities. You begin to sense its patterns and movements more intuitively. You dart and dash, learn which stretches allow you to really open up and which require a bit more vigilance. You start to be able to anticipate its next movements, to time traffic lights, to mentally map out a mile.

More than that, you interact with the city in different ways and take notice of things you might not have otherwise. You begin to appreciate the way various parts of the city interlock, how one neighborhood flows into another, how the character of the place can change even when your direction and the street on which you’re running remain the same. Places that seem remote and disconnected from each other when you’re simply getting in a car and driving from one location to a destination suddenly seem to overlap and fold into each other. You get to experience how serene Providence can be early in the morning – especially in the winter when it’s still dark at those ungodly hours. You marvel at the range of activities going on in the early evening as people exercise, sit down to dinner, meet friends at a bar, play with their children, hang out at the park, queue up at a food truck, take a stroll, etc.

Along the way you have interactions that are unique to running. I don’t mean talking to other runners about running or that sort of clubbiness – I mean interacting with people you wouldn’t cross paths with if you were running elsewhere, in ways that you wouldn’t interact with them if you came across them in different circumstances. There are the simple, knowing nods from other runners, sure, but there’s also the occasional guy waiting at a bus stop who sees you running, smiles and intones, “That’s what’s up,” or the passel of Brown University students relaxing in the grass who spontaneously cheer you on as you push your way up College Hill, or the early morning Megabus driver who lets his passengers wait so that he can give you a fist bump as you pass – three times a week.

So I encourage you, if you don’t already run, to get out there and try it. And if you do run, but not in the city, leave the treadmill or the track or the bike path behind for a day and pound the pavement instead. I guarantee at some point you’ll find yourself in a place you didn’t necessarily plan to be, taking note of something new and interesting, even if the place is familiar, and you’ll think, I should do this more often.