As gyms closed and stay-at-home orders went into effect in cities across the country during the peak of COVID-19, many Americans turned to the outdoors to get their essential exercise.
And many have continued to seek running outside as part of their daily, weekly — or intermittent — activity schedule.
Thankfully, personal finance website (definitely not a running website) SmartAsset has compiled a list of the top U.S. cities for runners. To get their results, they compared the 95 largest American cities across six different metrics: walk score, pedestrian fatality rate, number of gyms per 10,000 residents, number of races in 2019, percentage of the city that is parkland and housing costs as a percentage of income.
They found Midwestern cities tend to be best for those who like to work out by hitting the pavement, saying these towns usually have a high percentage of parkland and low pedestrian fatality rates compared to other parts of the country. In fact, pedestrian safety was a key factor in determining the top-ranking cities: The average fatality rate in the top 10 is about 1.18 per 100,000 residents.
So how did Cincinnati fare? We ranked No. 8.
SmartAsset wrote: "Cincinnati, Ohio had the 12th-highest number of races in 2019 of all the cities in our study, a total of 53. The city also ranked in the top 20 for both its low pedestrian fatality rate, at 1.22 per 100,000 residents, and its high number of gyms per 10,000 residents, at 1.49."
The best city for runners in America is Minneapolis.
Here's a look at the rest of the top 10.
See the full data and methodology at smartasset.com.
