How Take the Bridge Changed the Scenario for Urban Road Racing

When Anthony Crouchelli crossed the line of Take the Bridge’s ninth anniversary race at 8:30 p.m. on a Thursday in July, he didn’t know where he was going. That’s the deal when you sign up for an unsanctioned race. For those not yet in the know, Take the Bridge is inspired by street racing, where start and checkpoint locations are kept secret until race day. There are no road closures or aid stations; just hard-fought runs on side streets, at intersections, and, yes, over bridges (think road racing meets track). Runners can follow whatever course they want, as long as they reach the checkpoints in the predetermined order.

Getting lost wasn’t an option, so Crouchelli, GoPro in hand and a smile that stretched from the Bronx to his native Hoboken, doubled down on his strategy: use home-field advantage.

He was with a few guys from Boogie Down Bronx Runners, a local club that hosted the race and is presented by 5H ENERGY. Men's Magazineto resort to some shortcuts.

As they made their way down Marble Hill and toward Inwood, runners got creative. They rode an elevator that smelled of weed, ran through subway stations and jumped over gutters all the way to the George Washington Bridge. Never before had Take the Bridge taken on the GW, a nearly mile-long suspension bridge connecting Upper Manhattan with Fort Lee, N.J.; nor had it ever held a race this high up in the city.

About 100 runners gathered for the event, many representing running clubs in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. Founded in 2017 by Lenny Grullon, Boogie Down's mission is to inspire “non-runners” to lace up their shoes and hit the streets.

Grullon, an educator and father of four, told me before the race that when Take the Bridge founder Darcy Budworth reached out to him about co-hosting, he suggested starting closer to the GWB. Grullon said that if his club was going to get involved in the race, he wanted to make the Bronx a big part of it. Budworth agreed, and they mapped out a roughly 10K route from the Bronx, looping back through the GWB and finishing at the Bronx Public, a gastropub that doubles as the race headquarters.

For the past nine years, Budworth has run Take the Bridge races from Los Angeles to Maine, and even held one in Paris this June. They have a reputation for being fast, attracting not just elite runners but also those brave enough to weave in and out of traffic, negotiate dark streets, and dash over barricades, even if it means cutting a few feet off the course.

It was important to Grullon that the Bronx edition feel inclusive to his community. Many of the Boogie Down runners were new to running and worried they might not feel welcome at the event. Budworth told him that’s exactly what he envisioned for the anniversary race: runners running sub-6-minute miles and others running 12-minute miles.

“Then I'm sold,” Grullon said. “Let's do it.”

In keeping with tradition, the race was won by two local elite and experienced street cats: a track coach from New Jersey named Kyle Price and a pediatric oncology nurse named Lindsey Renaud. As with any street cat race, their times were somewhat unrelated, given that each person may have chosen a slightly different route. In fact, Price ran 7.12 miles, while Renaud ran a flat 7.

Among the 100 finishers was Los Angeles-based runner Keaton Kustler, who ran his first Take the Bridge in December 2022. It was pretty bad, he recalls. He got lost in downtown Los Angeles, had to pee in a bush and thought, “This sucks.”

But something about the experience—the DIY ethic, the sense of danger—reminded Kustler of the punk shows he went to as a teenager in his hometown of Boston, so he signed up for another race in March 2023. Two months later, he competed in The Speed ​​Project, a 340-mile relay race without permits from Santa Monica, CA, to Las Vegas, NV. Kustler was hooked.

Contrary to Grullon’s perception that Take the Bridge only attracts elite athletes, Kustler embodies the spirit of the series. He started running five years ago to break a years-long cycle of depression and unemployment brought on by a near-fatal car accident. In 2015, he was a member of the road crew for recording artist Twin Shadow when their tour bus rear-ended a semi-truck, sending the tail of the bus flying into the air and then falling back with such force that Kustler fractured his T12 vertebrae.

Although Kustler was never athletic as a child, racing without a permit appealed to his rebellious nature and offered a strategic challenge, and he felt most drawn to the community of the L.A. running club scene.

“Running is the new skateboarding,” he said.

Speed ​​was never his priority. He finished his first half marathon in 2:37 and was close to last in the first two Take the Bridges. So when someone yelled at him at the GWB that he was in fourth place, Kustler summoned everything he had. He finished third. It was his first time in anything.

Crouchelli ran an average of 6:49 for the 7.08 miles, faster than he expected. He said he was inspired by Price high-fiving him as he came back from the bridge after hitting the checkpoint on the Jersey side. Crouchelli began doing the same, hitting the hands of about 100 other runners that night.

“It looked like a Liberty Mutual commercial,” he said jokingly after the race.

Crouchelli mingled with other finishers over wings and beer, recording many of their stories with his GoPro. He spoke with Kustler about his running journey, met a young man who had recently moved back in with his family and uses running as an escape from the daily pressures of life, and heard from dozens of people about why they decided to run across the George Washington Bridge on a Thursday night in July. No two stories were the same.

Crouchelli is looking forward to another race, especially if it takes place in the Bronx.

“The Uptown running culture is very accepting, welcoming and warm,” she said. “But there’s also this fire, spark and magnetic energy underneath that makes every step you take feel alive, connected and purposeful.”

As Grullon would agree, it's hard to think of a better reason to tie your laces.

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