New Routes: Red Bank Battlefield Park

It’s an archetypal image burned into the mind of everyone who lives within 100 miles of Philadelphia: Rocky Balboa racing up the Philly Art Museum’s steps in the gauzy dawn glow, arms raised in victory.

His final climb evokes that singular feeling of triumph, of conquering a mountain at the end of a long run.

Shift that scene across the Delaware and a few miles south to the cliff side that is Red Bank Battlefield Park, and Rocky would’ve gotten eaten for lunch.

You want hills? You want steps? Try running a half-dozen miles, then racing up to the Fort Mercer monument from the riverside path.

That’s triumph. That’s overcoming adversity.

Assuming, of course, you don’t kill yourself in the process.

But Red Bank’s more than just steep steps that are great for cross-training; along with the nearby streets of National Park, it’s a quiet, scenic running route smack in the middle of the ‘burbs that gives you the chance to run along some amazing history, without having to drive out to Valley Forge or Gettysburg.

There are plenty of options to running at the park, depending on how hard you want to beat yourself. The main loop from the parking lot out to the lower bowl along the river gives you a lap of just under a mile, if you run the entire path and cut along the base of the hillside. If you’re looking for a run of just a few miles, it’s great.

Otherwise, it’s best to incorporate some of the streets of National Park or the Red Bank section of West Deptford, so you don’t get worn down by monotony–let’s face it, six or eight loops with the same scenery can get tedious.

As a bonus, this time of year, the trees are flowering and leafing out–unless you’re allergic, in which case it’s not so much a bonus as it is a Claritin-induced nightmare.

And then there are the aforementioned stairs. They’re not the tallest or steepest in the world, but incorporating a few runs up and down them is just as good as any tour de stade you could find in South Jersey. Add those in at the end of your run, and you’ll make Rocky look like a punk.

--

It’s another two weeks until the Broad Street Run, but the year’s first major event kicks off in a couple hours up in Boston. There’s a mystique about qualifying for the Boston Marathon, and other marathons capitalize on it, dropping references to being an official Boston qualifier in their literature.

I was curious, though–what’s it actual take for a guy in his early 30s to score an entry into the big race?

Turns out it’s crazy fast. I’m aiming for a 1:18 at Broad Street, which will put me on a 7:48 mile pace–something I figure I can handle for 10 miles, since my top 5K times have been just under a seven-minute mile.

Boston, though? I’d be looking at averaging 7:14 a mile for 26.2 miles.

If my legs could, they would impeach my brain for even considering that.

For running devotees who can’t check out the Boston broadcast (on Universal Sports, which is digital channel 10.3 for most of us around here), it’ll be streamed online at the Universal Sports website starting at 9:30 a.m.