An Almost-Alphabetical Guide to Ocean Parkway for the Popular® Brooklyn Half

The Popular® Brooklyn Half course brings runners from Grand Army Plaza and Prospect Park to Coney Island, but before you get from the park to the boardwalk, you'll have a five-mile straight-line stretch of Ocean Parkway to cover first.

And since those blocks are avenue blocks—as opposed to the shorter street blocks you cross in a race like the New Balance 5th Avenue Mile—it can sometimes feel like a mental challenge just as much as a physical one (at least, it seemed like that the one year I ran it).

However, many of the avenues you'll cross are lettered (e.g. Avenue K, Avenue L, etc.), and as they run in alphabetical order down toward the finish, we've compiled an almost-alphabetical guide to running down Ocean Parkway.

This way, if you need something to keep your mind occupied—or take your mind off the race—you'll have a new topic to think about every block. By the time you're done with the alphabet, you'll be practically on the boardwalk.

On to the list, as we begin with...

A is for...alright, so, there actually is no Avenue A that intersects with Ocean Parkway. There's an Avenue A that runs through Canarsie and East Flatbush, but the closest you'll come to an A avenue here is Albemarle Road. The same applies here with Avenue B; there's no street by that name on any map of Brooklyn, so the best we can settle for here is Beverley Road, one block from Albemarle. Nonetheless, we move on to...

C is for cookie, obviously. But it's also for Coney Island, and you'll be there in just about 5.2 miles. If you need something positive to think about, you're already more than half-way through the race!

D is for...dang, because again we find ourselves with a street that exists in Brooklyn, but just not in this part of Brooklyn. There is an Avenue D that runs through Flatbush, but its name changes to Ditmas Avenue after it crosses Flatbush Avenue. Avenue E, much like Avenue B, does not exist anywhere in Brooklyn, so we'll skip ahead to...

F is for frankfurters. Coney Island is known for them, to the point that it hosts the annual Hot Dog Eating Contest every Fourth of July. We're not saying you should try to break the record (currently 74 hot dogs in 10 minutes), but if you don't have any other dietary restrictions, why not treat yourself to one after the race?

G is for...goodness me, I hope this is the last time this happens, because there is no Avenue G in Brooklyn—at least, not anymore. Sometime in the early 20th century, the street was renamed Glenwood Road. If you really want something Brooklyn-related that starts with G, you can think about Grand Army Plaza, with its 80-foot-tall Soldiers' and Sailors' Arch that you ran around just a few miles ago.

H is for hot dogs. As we wrote earlier, Brooklyn's famous for them (and this makes hot dog reference #2 on this list, for those of you keeping score at home). In 1867, Charles Feltman began serving frankfurter sausages on an elongated roll, calling them "Coney Island Red Hots" in the early days. If you think of the course distance in terms of footlong hot dogs, you've got the equivalent of 23,760 hot dogs left until you're on Coney Island (this out of a total course distance of 69,232.5 hot dogs).

I is for incline. Remember that uphill in Prospect Park a few miles back? That was the biggest climb you'll see on this course (and at that, it was a little less than four-tenths of a mile at a 3% average grade). As you recall, a downhill followed soon after, then down the entrance ramp onto Ocean Parkway, and from that point forward, it's pretty much flat to the finish.

J is for Joralemon. If you were on your way to the Popular® Brooklyn Half Pre-Party and saw signs for this street, but weren't sure how to pronounce it, you can spend this next block trying to figure it out.

...and in case you wanted the answer, it's johr-AHL-ih-mun.

K is for Kings County, the county that you're in now. It's the most populous county in the United States, and NYRR volunteers are ready to give you the royal treatment once you've finished the biggest half-marathon in the country.

L is for livestock. Before it was officially a park, the land that is now Prospect Park was used as grazing fields for cows, pigs, goats, horses, and more—a bit of a contrast to the herds of dogs you might see scampering across the Long Meadow on any given day.

M is for MCU Park—you'll be there soon for the Popular® Brooklyn Half After-Party. During baseball season, it's the home stadium for the Brooklyn Cyclones, a minor-league affiliate of the New York Mets.

N is for Nathan's. I bet you didn't think we could fit another reference to hot dogs in here, but we did. In any case, the founder of Nathan's, Nathan Handwerker, worked at Charles Feltman's restaurant on Coney Island before starting his own hot-dog business in 1916.

O is for Ocean, whether it's Ocean Parkway—as in, the road you're running on right now—or Atlantic Ocean, as in, the big body of water next to the Popular® Brooklyn Half finish line.

P is for Prospect Park, where, if you recall, you ran a few miles earlier. Believe it or not, it is not the largest park in Brooklyn; that honor belongs to Marine Park. (And if you're looking for a post-race shakeout run, there's an NYRR Open Run at Marine Park every Sunday at 9:00 a.m.!)

Q is for...you may have noticed that where Avenue Q would be is actually named Quentin Road. So it is the name of an award-winning play, but it is not the name of a real street in Brooklyn. In any case, at this point in the race, "There's a Fine, Fine Line" between maintaining your pace and bonking, but the Popular® Cheer Zone is just a few blocks away to keep you moving strong!

R is for roller coaster. In 1884, the first roller coaster in the United States opened on Coney Island, and today, visitors to Luna Park have their choice of six different "scenic railways," as they were called back then.

S is for subway (speaking of scenic railways...). If you'd like to think of yourself as racing the subway down to Coney Island, the B, F, and Q trains run roughly parallel to Ocean Parkway.

T is for teddy bear. Did you know that the teddy bear was first sold in Brooklyn? Well, now you do. In 1902, inspired by a political cartoon about President Theodore Roosevelt, Brooklyn shopkeeper Morris Michtom designed a stuffed fabric bear and sold it as "Teddy's bear." The idea took off, and Michtom later formed his own stuffed bear company. If you're hitting a rough patch in the race, maybe try to think of one of your favorite stuffed friends?

U is for "Unity Makes Strength," the official motto of Brooklyn (although you may have also seen "Fuhgeddaboutit" and "Oy Vey" on a few traffic signs). The motto appears on the borough's flag and its seal as "Eendraght Maeckt Maght," the Dutch translation of the phrase, as Dutch settlers in the 17th century named the area after Breukelen, Netherlands.

V is for Virtual Racing. A number of runners in this year's Popular® Brooklyn Half earned their entry to the race through NYRR's 2018 Virtual 6 program. If you're one of these runners, we hope you're enjoying getting to see Brooklyn "IRL."

W is for wildlife, and the wide variety of which you'll pass along the course, from the Prospect Park Zoo in the early miles to the New York Aquarium on the Coney Island boardwalk near the finish.

X is for...you know what, folks, not a lot of words start with X. Maybe take a mental break on this one before you gear up for the homestretch.

Y is for youth. More than 1,500 Rising New York Road Runners athletes are registered to take part in one-mile races on the Coney Island boardwalk following the Popular® Brooklyn Half.

Z is for zephyr, which means "a soft, gentle breeze." By this point, if the weather is playing along, you should be feeling that soft gentle breeze coming off the Atlantic Ocean, as you draw nearer to the Coney Island boardwalk and the Popular® Brooklyn Half finish line.

If you've made it this far (in the article or in the race) then congratulations! You're almost to the end.

Once you're past Avenue Z, Ocean Parkway continues for another eight-tenths of a mile before the course turns onto Surf Avenue. Once you're on Surf, you're within a mile of the finish line, so give it your best. Cross that finish line and you'll come away from the day with 13.1 more miles than you had run before, and hopefully some interesting talking points for whomever you run into at the Popular® Brooklyn Half After-Party at MCU Park.