every single street: princeton, nj

If you haven't watched this video yet, I highly recommend it.

Every Single Street

Rickey Gates decided he was going to run every single street in his hometown of San Francisco. No doubt, there's a ton of elevation gain and loss with this type of project in San Fran. Princeton, NJ is not nearly as hilly, but I did find out that it's pretty darn hilly!

This was another one of my COVID-19 running projects since no races were happening. In total it took me 23 days to complete it. I didn't have a set number of days to target- just made it part of my overall training this past spring. In total, it ended up being 196 miles (included all of the necessary backtracking) and 9,585 ft of climbing. I didn't measure the elevation loss.

There's something cool about knowing that my feet have touched every single street in this town. It was a challenge for sure- took a lot of planning and mapping out the most efficient routes with the least amount of backtracking. I was able to see parts of town that I never would've seen. One day, I stumbled upon a private little pond down a side street. Another day, I was chased off of a private drive by an angry man with his dog and his Mom. I loved coming home after each run and tracing the route I did that day on my Princeton map. They were definitely more artistic looking routes compared to my usual loops. Here is a half marathon that I ended up doing as part of the project.

Many of these runs happened during the spring, when we were in lock down for COVID-19. Thankfully, we were never told that we couldn't leave our homes to exercise. There was an eeriness at first, going out with the streets so quiet, no traffic noises, foxes and deer wandering around campus boldly with numbers of humans significantly decreased as soon as the students were sent home. I grew to really enjoy my time outside and to be grateful for the ability to be outdoors as I kept hearing more and more about closures and restrictions around the world. There was something very freeing about being able to run down the middle of one of the busiest streets in Princeton and seeing very few cars and no people.

I'm still waiting for the day when it'll be safe to give and receive hugs again. Until then, it's safe to go out and give a rock (or a tree) a hug.