Is Albuquerque the best US city for pro runners?
Is Albuquerque the best US city for pro runners?
The modern professional distance runner seeks high elevation, endless trails, and moderate weather when they're choosing their training locations. Albuquerque makes a case for being the best option.
With the USA Olympic Trials for Track and Field underway, it’s fitting to take a break from the usual Complex Effects topics of climate and economics to write about running.
It’s been an exciting year for track and field fans. New rivalries are taking shape, young stars are breaking onto the scene, a new running league called Grand Slam Track announced its plans to reshape the sport, and the world’s best are gearing up for the Paris Olympics in about a month. With all of this going on, I’ve been following athletes from around the world as they travel to train in altitude camps in the US.
As a washed-up semi-pro distance runner myself, I consequently pay more attention to distance runners, their teams, and the places they train. Distance runners tend to spend most or all of their year living and training at high elevations, and most good distance runners from around the world seem to all do an altitude camp in a Western US city. Boulder, Flagstaff, Park City, and Albuquerque are some of the most popular destinations for professional runners - with most flocking to either Boulder or Flagstaff.
I’m here to tell you that Boulder and Flagstaff are cool, but you may be overlooking the Burque as a top contender for the best city for aspiring pro and Olympic runners in the US.
Like many former college runners trying to “make it”, I moved to Boulder right after college to pursue my running dreams. And like many runners trying to “make it” I had to work a couple of jobs to keep up with Boulder rent, meet travel costs, shoes, etc.
Running is a relatively cheap sport, which is one of the reasons I love it - it’s accessible to people. But to reach the highest echelons of the sport, it’s best to live and train in a place with good weather, high altitude, plenty of trails, and a major airport within a couple of hours for frequent racing. The problem is most places in the US with those four things are too expensive for a runner trying to make ends meet while training and resting adequately.
“Professional” distance runners, if they’re paid at all, are usually paid very little by their sponsoring shoe brand. A few big names at the top are paid decent, but professional runners aren’t exactly known for rolling in dough - or whatever the saying is. Outside of the few professional teams are what I call “semi-pro” distance runners, or runners that may be on a team but self-fund their running career in hopes of running fast and signing a shoe deal “making it.”
That said, I still find that many pros and semi-pros, whether they’ve signed a professional shoe deal or not, flock to expensive cities like Boulder or Park City when their salaries suggest they shouldn’t.
Intrigued by this phenomenon that I once fell victim too, I set out to confirm what I already sort of knew: the running world is sleeping on Albuquerque.
First, I found all the cities in the US with the following:
High elevation - above 4,500 feet;
International Airport within 2 hours (for easy race travel); and
A local running culture
And then analyzed the cities based on:
Number of months with an Avg. low temperature above 30°F and an Avg. high below 90°F (idealish running weather);
Acres of parks and conserved land (running trails); and
Cost of living
Here are the results ranked from least to most expensive:
At first glance, you might notice a couple of famous running towns did not make the list because they are either below 4,500 ft elevation or they are too far from a major airport - Crested Butte, Alamosa, and many other small towns are too remote, and Portland, Seattle, L.A., Eugene, Boise did not make the list for being below 4,500 ft of elevation. This isn’t to say Portland doesn’t have great running, because it does. But there’s a reason all pro runners in Portland travel to higher elevations several months out of the year. The competitive advantage of training at elevation is too big to ignore.
What stood out most to me in my analysis above is that Albuquerque is the cheapest city, has the most moderate weather, and has the second-most land dedicated to parks and open space. Despite this, most professional and semi-professional runners tend to go elsewhere. This is likely due to several reasons - like they know or idolize runners in Boulder, Flagstaff, and Provo - but I think it’s mostly because nobody realizes how great Albuquerque is for running at a high level.
The local running culture is strong. New Mexico has a long history of producing fast runners - George Young, Chuck Aragon, and David Krummernacker are all from the Land of Enchantment. Steve Prefontaine used to do altitude camps in New Mexico in the 1970s, and the USA Track and Field Indoor Championships are often held at the Albuquerque Convention Center in the winter.
Today, runners like Josh Kerr, currently the world’s best 1500m runner, Habtom Samuel, the 2024 NCAA 10,000m Champion, and Nia Akins, the 2024 US Olympic Trials 800m Champion, call Albuquerque home at least part of the year.
Josh Kerr and his team, the Brooks Beasts, have been doing their altitude camps in Abq for several years after camps in Flagstaff and elsewhere left them disappointed. Danny Mackey, the team’s head coach, said in a Sports Illustrated interview in 2016, “The weather is more mild [in Albuquerque] and—my secret—you can do a lot more runs at lower elevations (5,000 feet) within a 10- to 15-minute drive.”
Albuquerque does feel like a well-kept secret in the running world. Within 20-30 minutes, an Albuquerque runner has access to thousands of acres of parks, open space, national refuges, and more, including some of my local favorites:
The Rio Grande Bosque - The Rio Grande Valley State Park is a 4,300-acre riparian forest that runs through the center of the city along the Rio Grande. It has almost 200 miles of paved and dirt paths, it’s 5,000 feet high, flat, green, shaded, and great for any type of running workout (or soaking in the water).
The Foothills - Between the City of Albuquerque and the Sandia Mountains, “the foothills” are 2,650 acres of hilly trails, pinon trees, and mountain views running the length of the city from North to South. The foothills are 6,500 ft high, great for hilly runs, and connect you to trails higher up in the Sandia and Manzano mountains.
Sandia Mountain - The Cibola National Forest hosts miles of trails up to 10,678 feet high with beautiful vistas and plenty of small towns nearby to visit post-run. Unless you’re training for ultra-marathons, you don’t need to spend much time above 7,500 ft of elevation, but Sandia Mountain is there if you need it.
West Mesa Open Space - Over 10,000 acres of trails, volcanoes, grasslands, and National Monuments, like the Petroglyph National Monument pictured above.
Acequias and multi-use paths weave throughout Albuquerque, connecting all of the major running trails to each other and most of the residents of Abq. Acequias are 500-year-old irrigation canals that supply water to farmers - they also double as a shaded running route. Between acequias and the 400 miles of multi-use paths throughout the city, you can find somewhere good to run if you can’t get to the bosque or foothills.
More about how cool acequias are:
Rethinking acequias as climate solutions in car-centric Albuquerque
Now, other US cities have great places to run too, but Albuquerque’s weather is hard to beat. All four seasons are relatively mild - summers are a little cooler than Provo, winters are a little warmer and dryer than Boulder, and fall (and most of the spring) in Albuquerque are heavenly. I think this is where Albuquerque is overlooked.
As most professional running teams continue to pay a premium to be in Boulder and Flagstaff, teams like the Brooks Beasts will continue to reap the benefits of running’s best-kept secret.
Albuquerque is probably the best bang for the buck city to live in if you want to pursue elite distance running. Albuquerque has the same elevation as Boulder, more trails than Flagstaff, better weather than Provo, and is more affordable than all of them.
That said, Albuquerque’s not perfect either. It continues to have a problem with pedestrian safety, summers are getting hotter, and housing prices are rising with the rest of the nation. It’s important to not take for granted the balance of good climate and housing that Albuquerque has enjoyed for a long time. Turns out I can’t take a break from writing about climate and economics after all. If you’re an aspiring distance runner looking to relocate to the American West, give the Duke City a try.