There's nothing wrong with that route (I've done similar before) but depends on what you want to see and how 'peaceful' you want the run to be. Brooklyn Bridge is a cool experience, imho, but is typically overrun with tourists, especially if it's a nice day, as well as cyclists going at high speeds with whistles to make sure tourists and runners stay out of their way (sometimes more effective than others). That can make the trek less than a peaceful experience. You shouldn't have any foot traffic problems on manhattan bridge on the way back tho. If you're going to do it, I would do it early in the morning before peak tourist hours, and stay out of the bike lane while on the Brooklyn Bridge :-)

Otherwise another good option is if you run directly 'up' flatbush (southeast) you can get to Prospect Park which has a nice 3 mile loop as well as some trails you can run on. I find that to be a much more peaceful route. If I were in your shoes and wanted to get the best of both worlds I'd wake up early, take the 2, 3, 4, or 5 into manhattan (around fulton street, shouldn't be much more than a 5-10 min subway ride), get off and start the run on the Manhattan side of Brooklyn Bridge, go over the bridge, make your way along flatbush to prospect park, do the loop and then return to Barclays Center...depends on how long a run you're targeting but you could turn that into a 6 mile-ish run pretty easily.

id second this. except id run at night, after the traffic. i always thought brooklyn bridge was best experienced at night. less pedestrian traffic then too.

you could just wind around dumbo if you didnt want to go to prospect park, again, more peaceful in the evening or early morning.

Most definitely Prospect Park.
From Barclay's center up to the park, a full loop and back should give you right around 5 miles, do 2 loops and you got yourself your 8.

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Thanks for the advice guys... everything I read says running across Brooklyn Bridge is a shit show and I'd be stuck doing it in the afternoon on the Saturday and there are two of us, although the weather is supposed to be cold, not sure if that changes anything.

What about an alternate route over the Willamsburg and back on the Manhattan? Still have the view of the BB to the south and the skyline.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=6281911


Would that make more sense? Is the 'direct' route to the Williamsburg as suggested by GMapPedometer something that you'd change?

I think you get really cool views of the Brooklyn Bridge (and the Manhattan Bridge) from underneath them. You could head down Atlantic all the way to the water and follow the path along the water to Brooklyn Bridge Park underneath the bridge and into DUMBO (where you can ride a carousel, eat some ice cream, or grab some grimaldis to fuel the rest of the run), run up Washington street but don't forget to turn around and look up to take a cool historic-looking picture of the Manhattan bridge behind you and then if you HAVE to run over a bridge to say you were in Manhattan you can run over the Manhattan bridge and back, make sure to run on the south side of the bridge if possible, otherwise you won't get views of the Brooklyn Bridge. There's really nothing special about the Williamsburg Bridge, or Williamsburg itself (if you're not wearing skinny jeans and sporting an ironic mustache anyways)...at least not while running. And the route from Williamsburg back to Atlantic Center isn't anything to write home about, unless you're stopping at Peter Luger's to grab a steak along the way (though, if you are going to do it anyways, at least run along Kent and Flushing Ave...a little nicer than running under 278). If you're not familiar with the area it wouldn't be difficult at all to get lost on the last route you posted either.

another option is crossing bklyn bridge and then running around the financial distric. as long as you bypass wall street and the bull, and other tourist spots, it is usually pretty quiet down there on a saturday.