Run 52: We Ended up at Home

We ran all around the city and ended up at home. 

But it wasn’t where we started.  About two-thirds of the way through, this project led us to the house and the neighborhood that we now call home.  On our Pleasant Ridge run we came across a stucco craftsman with an open house sign.  When we returned the next day to check it out, we fell in love with the details in the woodwork, the French doors, and the magnolia trees in the front yard. 

We hadn’t planned to buy a house (Too busy! Too much work!) and we hadn’t planned to leave Mount Lookout (Ault Park! Zips Cafe!) but on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving we found ourselves with a new set of a keys and lots of boxes to unpack.

 

For years—living in O’Bryonville and then Mt. Lookout—we ran on Observatory, Erie, and Madison and couldn’t imagine any other daily routes.  Back in January, we jotted down a note to ponder throughout the year: “Choosing where to live based on where to run… has this opened up neighborhoods we may not have considered?” 

When we ran in Pleasant Ridge on a Saturday in early October, the park behind the Recreation Center was filled with families, the sidewalks were shaded with trees, and there was plenty of variety in the topography.  Plus, we discovered that there is a “Pleasant Ridge Runners” club.  Sold.

But this project hasn’t been about making one neighborhood home.  Rather, the entire city now feels familiar. 

Now, when we see Twin Towers in the distance we know it to be in College Hill.  When someone tells us they live in Mt. Washington, we can picture them driving past the Creamy Whip on their way home from work.  When we hear a news story about any random place, chances are it was on one of our routes and we can say, “Oh, we ran by there.”  

 

When we’re driving through a place that at one time would have been unfamiliar, we recognize a cross-street or a park, and remember the run that took us there.  With every neighborhood is a bucket list for the sites to which we will return over the years and get to know better. There are so many: the Taft Museum, Krohn Conservatory, Stanbery Park, the list goes on.

And even more than the sites and streets that we know, we have an impression of each neighborhood that was formed from our firsthand experience.  We ran safely through the streets of every neighborhood, mostly in the morning.  In this way, all of the neighborhoods were bonded--we saw them as welcoming places where two runners from some other part of the city could show up and do their morning run.

 

 

We knew going into this year that Cincinnati has a robust running culture and a community of runners that grows each year.  Even people that don't run themselves are spirited about supporting people that do:  the deep crowds of spectators at the Flying Pig Marathon are proof enough.  As we ran through Avondale, Over-the-Rhine, Winton Hills and countless other neighborhoods, we received thumbs up and words of encouragement from complete strangers. 

 

This project gave us the opportunity to spend time with friends who share our passion for running and our love for this city.  Even better, in a few neighborhoods our friends became our running guides and showed us their neighborhoods from the perspective of someone who lives there.  On other runs, when a neighborhood was new to everyone our friends learned about new places as we did. 

 

It also gave us a chance to spend time together—to take a short trip each week and take on a small challenge.  We worked towards a shared goal and laughed a lot while doing it.  After a few weeks, it was clear that running was the easy part and that the real challenge would be plotting the courses and writing the recaps.  Now, just as we had found our rhythm, we’ve reached 52. 

 

This Saturday was the first in a long time that we didn’t wake up and drive together to the start of a carefully charted route in an unfamiliar neighborhood.  Instead, we each ran alone through our new neighborhood and then up Montgomery into Kennedy Heights. 

Since we moved to Pleasant Ridge in late November, it has been dark in the morning before work and then dark again when we get home.  Because of the shorter days our daily runs have been a bit disorienting, and this past Saturday’s was one of the first we’ve been able to do in the daylight.  It made us realize that although this project has officially ended, from now on we’ll run with a different perspective.  We’ll take more notice of the places around us.  We’ll ask our friends to join us.  We’ll wave to other runners.  We’ll seek out new routes. 

And because Cincinnati is home, every run will be a Run 52.

 

 

-Kayla and Donnie