Running in New Orleans (Read 1779 times)

Yeah, sticking to the street car tracks is a good idea.  You can follow them from downtown/French Quarter area, more or less, all the way to Tulane.  Across from Tulane is a nice park, with a running pathway, which is also generally safe.

Try running when it's light out, of course.

I'm going to N.O. this weekend and am supposed to be doing a 10 mile training run.  I found some routes on the Resources page, but am wondering about safety.  I'll be by myself and will probably go early (around 6am).  Hopefully it will be somewhat light at that point.  Any routes that I should avoid?  Thanks.

I'm in New Orleans this summer doing research at Tulane.  Where are you staying?  If you're uptown (Tulane/Loyola area, Carrollton) you can run in Audubon Park, St Charles Ave on the streetcar line (watch for streetcars, run on the left, they will start ringing at you if you don't move out of the way), City Park has some nice trails and an old golf course that is no longer in use.  Also check out the bike path on the Mississippi River levee.  It goes for 26 miles starting around Audubon Park.

One of my favorite runs is 9 miles from my house (near Tulane) to Lee Circle and back.  You can run the whole thing on St Charles Ave.

There aren't that many good places to run in New Orleans.  Most of my runs are some combination of St Charles Ave, Audubon Park and the levee.  Don't stray too far off of St Charles if that is where you are running.  The uptown area near Tulane is pretty safe.  If you have to, run toward the Mississippi rather than toward the center of the city.  You start getting into some of the worse areas more than 2-3 blocks off St Charles once you get away from Tulane.  Tulane's campus is a safe place to run.  It's worth a mile or so from north to south so it's a good way to get in 2 miles.

It should be plenty light for a run at 6AM.

You may luck out with the weather.  June was terribly hot but it has cooled down significantly in July.  High temp is 8-10 degrees cooler.  Still, stay hydrated.  There are working water fountains at the north and south end of Audubon Park in the shelters.

Hello, fellow New Orleanian!  I've been reading these forums for awhile, just signed up, first post.  Can't resist talking about the big easy.

Whereabouts are you?  Meaning, what is your closest cross street?  (Jefferson?  Napoleon?  Louisiana?  Jackson?)  You can create some pretty great loops using Magazine and St. Charles, as both streets have heavy traffic.

I've never had a problem (and I'm female, 26 yo), and I've been running around this city for a long time.  However. I do run in the late afternoon (clearly I'm a sucker for pain, oh the heat and humidity).  I just can't seem to get up that early. 

Awesome.  (Mine's Louisiana).  My advice is just run up to St. Charles, run down the tracks toward the Riverbend (or Downtown, depending on your mood) for as long as you want to go, then cut back to Magazine, and stay on Magazine until you hit your cross street.  You can also do this with Prytania, as that is another well-traveled throughway (and the houses are gorgeous).  And as was suggested, you can always incorporate the Audubon park loop into any run.

As in any urbran area, you just have to be smart and aware of your surroundings.  Enjoy your runs!

The Mississippi River Trail.  You can run on the top of the levee for miles and miles.  On vacation last year, I ran in a 30K race there.  It was very windy but dead flat.  Audubon Park seemed like a good place to start on the trail.

+1 for the Mississippi River Trail.

What part of New Orleans will you be in Trent?

There's also this http://www.nolabrewing.com/ 

;-)