It was a year of good runs.
Despite being sidelined for a few months, not by injury but rather COVID protocols and fine-issuing men on low-powered motorbikes, I found what have come to be my favorite routes. As usual, there was music involved, too.
Let’s start with 2021’s best loop, a 6-7ish mile jaunt through Ho Chi Minh City (see below for reference). It began at my old apartment, hugged a canal, snuck by the zoo, traversed a very large bridge, chugged along through a half-developed expanse of fast-developing high-rises and fields of affable cows, came back down to the Saigon river, then all the way home. Phew.
Back in the US, I came to learn the joys of running without sweating to the degree that it appeared I had jumped in a significant body of water. This was usually done at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, a terrific, uninterrupted 3.4-mile loop that, no matter how many times I do it over, will never get boring.
To accompany the year in running, I listened to a lot of samba rock from the likes of Tim Maia and Marcos Valle. On other, more serious occasions, it was minimal techno, or often somewhere in the middle, which we’ll call the record Metro Area by Metro Area. Here’s to the new year.