In late August, Runner's World magazine unveiled its ranking of the 50 best running cities in the United States. The top finishers were as unsurprising as the criteria considered — tolerable temperatures, an active racing scene, good trails and tracks.

San Francisco was No. 1. Boston was third. Washington came in fifth. Portland, Ore., and New York made the top 10, too.

Toward the end, between Salt Lake City and Spokane, Wash., was Baltimore, at No. 42 overall. This was not an outrage or a shock to the handful of runners interviewed for this article. Instead, it reflected a shared disappointment in what they say is the city's lack of commitment to matching the passion of its racing community.

“I feel like we have more people leaving than coming to do big races,” said Graham Peck, a Fells Point resident and marathoner who graduated from Dulaney. “More exporting than importing for people taking big races and big marathons seriously.”

The Runner's World rankings' methodology is necessarily imperfect. Just how do you measure a city's hospitality to running? Five indices were analyzed: run (weighted 40 percent), parks (20 percent), climate (20 percent), food (10 percent) and safety (10 percent).

The run index, for instance, considered how often people in a city run, the number of races in a city and whether the city hosted a marathon, among other factors, none too surprising.

The food index reflected more esoteric data: the frequency of farmers' markets and “an index of factors that contribute to a healthy food environment.”

“I think the type of people that run also could be the kind of people that would frequent a farmers' market,” said Ryan McGrath, who leads the Falls Road Racing group. “I know there's probably a quarter of people in my running group that love the Sunday farmers' market. I couldn't care less.”

Baltimore had its best scores in the parks and run indices, ranking 15th and 57th out of 150 cities, respectively. In climate, it finished 69th, behind cold-weather cities such as Rochester, N.Y.

That, in particular, bothered Carly Dillen. The coordinator of the women's side of the Falls Road Racing team, Dillen earned her bachelor's degree from the University at Buffalo. She thought of the city's frigid winters and heavy snowfall — over 60 inches in the past year alone — and wondered why that was deemed preferable to Baltimore's oppressive summers. Isn't running in 95-degree heat and 50 percent humidity better than not running at all?

“I just don't necessarily think that that's super accurate from a running stance,” she said of Rochester's 40th-ranked climate, “but I guess you've got to draw the line somewhere.”

Safety was an admitted concern for the runners — Baltimore ranked 138th in an index determined partly by cities' violent-crime rates — but was far from the biggest gripe. More at issue were various quirks in the city's running infrastructure.

Dillen bemoaned how Baltimore's many parks are largely unconnected, and lamented the lack of dirt trails and public-use tracks.

McGrath called Gywnns Falls Trail an “amazing gem of running,” then noted that it winds through Leakin Park.

“And what do they find there?” he said. “Bodies.”

Peck wishes that the Baltimore Marathon, the centerpiece of the city's annual Running Festival but one of the smallest marathons in the country, were more competitive. He said his finishing time at the Boston Marathon might be good enough for 50th at the Boylston Street finish line — yet first in Baltimore.

A watered-down field in the city's biggest races has a trickle-down effect on the city's best runners, he said. “A lot more people tend to travel to other cities in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast for their goal races rather than doing the Baltimore Marathon or anything else we have going on here.”

This saddens Peck, a nearly lifelong member of the Baltimore running scene. There is plenty to improve upon, he said, from the marathon's incentive structure to the city's trail system.

As for the community itself? That's more than fine.

“I think if you talked to the people in Baltimore who run here, most of them would say that they're pretty happy with the run culture that exists here,” said Dillen, who has run in Baltimore for the past nine years.

Runners described the city's groups, from the more serious (Baltimore Road Runners Club) to the free of charge (November Project), as inclusive and sociable, able to meet whatever level of expertise demonstrated. Teammates grab meals together after long runs, or tear through South Baltimore on early-morning hikes, or meet prospective club members at running stores.

In every downtown neighborhood, said Deirdre Weadock, a store leader and manager at Charm City Run, “I can think of a place where people gather to run on a regular basis, whether it's through a running store or community group or local gym. I just think that there's a lot of easy, social, free ways to get involved with running.”

Asked what made for a good running city, Weadock said in a telephone interview that she would have to answer the question later. There was a customer waiting.

jshaffer@baltsun.com

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