I’ve been a Cedar Rapidian (Cedar Rapids resident) for almost forty years. I’ve also been a runner for the large majority of those years and have trained thru many miles on the trails and streets of our town. I’d like to share this blog post called, ‘A Runners Guide to Downtown Cedar Rapids and the NewBo District’ and hope that it will be helpful to you whether you’re visiting the city for the first time or looking for a runner’s perspective and resource tool for a new route to get you going in a new direction.

Rejuvenation after the Flood of 2008

As with most everything in life, there is a yin and a yang or relative concept of balance. Although our city experienced a devasting blow with the massive flooding that occurred in 2008, the silver lining of what came from that was a rejuvenation of the city and a few specific areas like the NewBo Market and New Bohemia District, the Downtown Riverfront and the Czech Village area.

The new thriving area and beating heart of the New Bohemia District and Czech Village area include easy access to the Cedar Valley Trail System. The paved trail travels south all the way to Ely and includes several “pit stop” and restroom amenities at about every 1.5 – 2 miles. Much of the trail on this stretch going south as it transitions into the Hoover Trail system, is tree-lined and offers a nice “tunnel” of shade for enjoyment even thru the blazing hot summer months in Iowa. There are only a few slight elevation changes along this stretch and could mostly be considered “slightly rolling”. For a runner training for any longer distances of a half or full marathon the distance, one way, if starting at the NewBo Market, is approximately 8.5 miles thus making a great training run of 18-19miles total.

Cedar Valley Trail – Southbound

If traveling southbound on the trail you’ll get a chance to run along the river and past a couple of our cities factories. You’ll also experience running up and over the train tracks next to Tait Cummins Sports Complex and past some watershed area, where the occasional woodchuck or deer can be spotted.

A few additional perks of running an out and back route from the NewBo Market are that you can choose a nice refreshment or snack after your return to the NewBo Market. I personally love a smoothie from Get Fresh Juice Press. Perhaps even take a little time to stretch on the lawn or meander thru some of the fun shops like RayGun, The Iowa Running Company Shoe store, or even the NewBo Market vendors.

Prairie Park Fishery Trail and the Sac and Fox Trail

The Prairie Park Fishery Trail is one of my favorite spots for any sort of speedier running or specific shorter distance work because the 1.6 mile trail loops around the Cedar Lake and is marked at every tenth of a mile. The scenery is not too bad either.

Additional Perks to this section of trail are that you can hop right onto the Sac and Fox Trail extensions and wind your way all the way to the Indian Creek Nature Center. This part of the trail becomes pea gravel and is a nice surface to run if you’re looking to get a break from pounding the pavement.

Nurture the Brain and the Body

Have you heard of the RunCRwith.us app? It is an internet based app that a very bright group of high school kids at the Iowa BIG school developed for runners. More specifically there are 19 different routes that a runner can access in and amongst Cedar Rapids.

The app offers live gps tracking for runners as they tour around our city via one of the offered routes. The routes highlight many of our historical landmarks such as Brucemore Mansion and Czech Village, notable areas of the city like the above mentioned NewBo area and Cedar Valley Trail, and even navigate you thru a couple of local road races courses i.e. Especially For You Race Against Breast Cancer. Within the app and the live navigation, there is also audio tour and educative recording which plays to inform you about each specific route or landmark.

The routes vary in distances from just over a quarter mile all the way up to 15.2 miles. And if you find yourself feeling a little competitive the RunCRwith.Us app has teamed up with the Iowa Running Company shoe store and is offering a fun contest.

CONTEST

From May 12th to May 19th RunCrWith.Us is holding a contest! Run a route and tweet us at #runcrwithus to get credit. The person who ran the most miles by the end of the week gets a prize! 1st place gets a $75 gift card, 2nd place $50, and 3rd place $25 all from the Iowa Running Company!

The RunCRwith.us and Iowa Big students even took a few minutes (14min and 48 sec to be exact) to sit down with me and tell me a little more about the app and what went into the design and development of it. You may listen to it on my RMC Podcast on iTunes or thru the link on the right of this website page.

Cedar Rapids Can Be Fun to Explore thru Running

Like I said, I’ve been a resident of this city for quite some time and I still enjoy discovering new running routes, beautiful scenery for my photo run journal and seeing other outdoor enthusiasts doing the same.

What better way to learn and acquaint yourself with your city, than being active and fit at the same time?!