Runners Of NYC: Flushing Meadows Park Edition

The Runners of NYC Podcast heads to Queens for the first time, setting up live in Flushing Meadows Park in front of the Unisphere. Same concept as always: post up, see who stops, let the conversations go where they go. This time we came with a planned guest — Omar Medjid, co-founder of World's Fair Running Crew — plus whoever was willing to pull out their earbuds mid-run.

The stories this episode covered a lot of ground:

– Omar breaks down why Flushing Meadows is the center of the Queens running universe — the 1964 World's Fair that gave his crew its name, Wednesday night runs at David Dinkins Circle, the Meadows Mile unsanctioned race, and why Queens runners do it for the love of it rather than the visibility

– Jonathan, a stranger from Forest Hills, stopped mid-run one month into running to tell us about losing 60 pounds after weight loss surgery, making a promise to his wife to stay consistent, and running his first 10K in this very park without stopping.

– Hannah, an 11-year-old from Colombia, runs 20 miles a week as cross-training for competitive inline roller skating, with her mom cheering from a bicycle alongside her

– Andrew Chen, a World's Fair regular and co-owner of denim brand 3sixteen, explains how he never entered this park in 20 years of living in Forest Hills — and how running eventually led him to create an unsanctioned mile race on open streets in jorts with a strict no-stretch-denim policy

– Jeremy Mejia signed up for the 2020 NYC Marathon on impulse, got cancelled on, deferred, and kept going — eventually running a 3:32 in Berlin on a day he felt terrible and crying when he saw the clock.

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