How Take the Bridge Flipped the Script on Urban Road Racing

Tired of running in (the same) circles? This alleycat race series is just the ticket.

Anthony Crouchelli didn’t know where he was going as he toed the line of Take the Bridge’s ninth anniversary race at 8:30 p.m. on a Thursday in July. Such are the conditions when you sign up for an unsanctioned race. For those who haven't dabbled, Take the Bridge riffs off alleycat racing, wherein the start and checkpoint locations are kept secret until race day. There are no road closures or aid stations—just hard-charging along side streets, across intersections and, yes, over bridges (think road racing meets parkour). Runners are allowed to follow any course they want so long as checkpoints are hit in the pre-determined order.  

Getting lost wasn’t an option. So, GoPro in hand, with a smile stretching from the Bronx to his local stomping grounds of Hoboken, Crouchelli doubled down on his strategy: use the home field advantage. 

He tucked in with some guys from Boogie Down Bronx Runners, a local club that co-hosted the race, presented by 5-hour ENERGY and Men's Journal, to hit some shortcuts.

As they wove down through Marble Hill and into Inwood, the runners got creative. They rode an elevator reeking of weed, ran through subway stations, and hopped over gutters all the way to the George Washington Bridge. Take the Bridge had never before tackled the GW, a suspension bridge nearly a mile long connecting Upper Manhattan and Fort Lee, NJ; nor had it ever held a race so far uptown. 

Around 100 runners came together for the event, many representing run clubs in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. Co-founded in 2017 by Lenny Grullon, Boogie Down has a mission to inspire “non-runners” to lace up and hit the streets.

An educator and father of four, Grullon told me before the race that when Take the Bridge founder Darcy Budworth reached out to him about co-hosting, she suggested starting closer to the GWB. Grullon countered that if his club was going to be involved, he wanted to make the Bronx a major part of the race. Budworth agreed, and they charted out a roughly 10K route from the Bronx over the GWB and back to finish at Bronx Public, a gastropub that doubled as race central.

Over the last nine years, Budworth has held Take the Bridge races from Los Angeles to Maine, and even one in Paris this past June. They have a reputation for being fast, drawing runners who aren’t just elite but intrepid enough to dart in and out of traffic, navigate darkened streets, and jump barricades if it might mean shaving a few meters off the course.  

For Grullon, it was paramount that the Bronx edition feel inclusive to his community. Many of the Boogie Down runners are new to running, and he worried they might not feel welcome at the event. Budworth told him that’s exactly what she envisioned for the anniversary race—to have runners hitting sub-6-minute miles and others running 12-minute miles. 

“Then I’m sold,” Grullon said. “Let’s go for it.”

True to tradition, the race was won by two local elites and veteran alleycats: a track coach from New Jersey named Kyle Price and a pediatric oncology nurse named Lindsey Renaud. As with any alleycat race, their times were somewhat irrelevant given that everyone might have taken a slightly different route. Indeed, Price ran 7.12 miles while Renaud logged closer to 7 flat.  

Among the 100 finishers was Keaton Kustler, a Los Angeles-based runner who ran her first Take the Bridge in December 2022. It was pretty awful, she recalled. She got lost in downtown LA, had to pee in a bush, and thought, “This sucks.” 

But something about the experience—the DIY ethos, the sense of danger—reminded Kustler of the punk shows she used to go to as a teenager in her native Boston, so she signed up for another race in March 2023. Two months later, she raced The Speed Project, an unsanctioned 340-mile relay from Santa Monica, CA, to Las Vegas, NV. Kustler was hooked.

Contrary to Grullon’s perception of Take the Bridge attracting only elite athletes, Kustler embodies the spirit of the series. She began running five years ago to break a years-long cycle of depression and unemployment brought on by a near-fatal car accident. In 2015, she was a member of the recording artist Twin Shadow’s road crew when their tour bus rear-ended a semi, causing the bus’s tail to fly into the air, then crash back down with such force that it fractured Kustler’s T12 vertebrae.

Although Kustler had never been athletic as a child, unsanctioned racing appealed to her rebellious nature and presented a strategic challenge. Most of all, she felt drawn to the community of the LA run club scene. 

“Running is the new skateboarding,” she said.  

Speed was never her priority. She finished her first half-marathon in 2:37, and was close to last in her first two Take the Bridges. So when someone shouted to her on the GWB that she was in 4th position, Kustler summoned everything she had. She finished 3rd. It was the first time she’d ever placed in anything.

Crouchelli averaged 6:49 over 7.08 miles—faster than he’d expected to run. He was inspired, he said, by Price giving him a high-five as he was coming back over the bridge after hitting the checkpoint on the Jersey side. Crouchelli began doing the same and slapped the hands of close to 100 runners that night. 

“It felt a bit like a Liberty Mutual commercial,” he joked after the race.

As Crouchelli mingled with the other finishers over wings and beer, he captured many of their stories with his GoPro. He talked with Kustler about her running journey, met a young man who recently moved back in with his parents and uses running as liberation from life's everyday pressures, and heard from dozens of others about why they decided to tackle the George Washington Bridge on a Thursday night in July. No two stories were the same.

For his part, Crouchelli can’t wait to do another race—especially if it’s in the Bronx.

“Uptown running culture is so accepting, welcoming, and warm,” he said. “But, also, it has this fire and spark and magnetic energy underneath it, where every step you’re running feels vibrant and connected and purposeful.”

As Grullon would agree, it’s hard to think of a better reason to lace up. 

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