Monday, January 30, 2012

Getting lost, or the joys of trying a new route.

During the week, it's all I can do to get myself out of bed in time to squeeze in a run in my neighborhood before work. On the weekends, however, there's usually more time for runs that go further afield. Often, I'll do what I did Saturday and run to some far off point and take the train home. Once in a while, however, I'll take the subway to some new place and run there. Yesterday was one of those days.

I do a fair amount of runs in Astoria and Long Island City, but I've only ventured deeper into Queens on a handful of occasions. For a while now, the siren song of Forest Park has been calling me, so with the skies clear and the temps hovering around 40, I decided to go for it.

I got off the E at Kew Gardens - Union Turnpike and had little trouble making my way to the Forest Park. Forest Park is a nice middle ground between the well-manicured but urban feeling Central and Prospect Parks, and the wilder stretches of Van Cortlandt Park's wooded trails. It also has some pretty decent hills (which I guess you should expect when one of the surrounding neighborhoods has "hills" in its name!).

Because I didn't plan out the run too carefully before hand--the idea was to "explore"--I ended up getting turned around a couple of times. Oh well, at least I got to see more. I ended my run at the area's main commercial strip and picked up a Sicilian slice at Portofino. Nick's Pizza, which is just a couple blocks away, is supposed to serve one of the best pies in the city, but they don't sell slices so I'll just have to visit them next time.



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