On May 17, 2019 I ran unsupported from the Harrison PATH station to the 33rd St PATH station. I stopped at every PATH station in NJ along the way in this order: Harrison, Newark Penn Station, Journal Square, Grove Street, Exchange Place, Newport, and Hoboken. Next, I took the PATH from Hoboken to WTC. I then stopped at every PATH station in NY in this order: WTC, Christopher St, 9th St, 14th St, 23rd St, and finally 33rd St.
This was my timetable:
5:47:01 AM - Leave Harrison
6:54:05 AM - Arrive at Hoboken (top of stairs down to PATH), Run time: 1:07:05
7:04 - 7:15 - PATH train to WTC (pretty much on time)
7:18:53 AM - Depart WTC from West Concourse exit onto Hudson River Greenway
7:38:05 AM - Arrive at 33rd Street PATH station, Run time: 19:12
TOTAL time was 1:51:04
This includes transit time of 24:48 - from the top of the stairs down to the PATH in Hoboken to the exit from WTC onto Hudson River Greenway
I thought about several different routes. The 1st thought was to start from Newark/Harrision and end at Exchange Place on the NJ side since that was the shortest PATH trip. But looking at the map it seemed a shorter distance to end at Hoboken even though the train trip was slightly longer. Also Exchange Place has more frequent trains, so with an uncertain arrival time that was also a consideration. I decided to go with the Hoboken route and leave myself a few minutes buffer ahead of the train. In the back of my mind I was thinking if I ended up running a bit faster, I could possibly push for one earlier train - which would be 6:00 earlier.
The day didn't start off too great as I was taking NJT to get to Newark for the start- my planned 5:17 train was cancelled, so I had to rush out and catch a 5:04. This ended up throwing off my plans in a big way. I calculated my planned comfortable run time of 1:15 for the NJ leg, so I left at 5:47 exactly, putting me in Hoboken at 7:02 to catch a 7:04 train. My estimate was comfortable so I figured even with the slowdowns to take pictures and possible traffic, I could still push to make that train easily. Turns out I was running much faster than I thought, and then after Journal Square it was mostly all downhill to the river so I was able to keep up the pace even with the picture slowdowns. So I started pushing to catch the earlier train, which I THOUGHT would be 8 minutes earlier (6:56). I tried to give myself some buffer because I wasn't sure how long it would take to get down the stairs, through the turnstiles, and actually get on the train. So I got there exactly at 6:54 and got to the turnstile right as the 6:54 (NOT 6:56) was pulling away. Turns out at that earlier time the gap between the trains is 10 minutes, which I never considered since I never expected to be there that early. So I sat on the platform for 10 minutes and took the 7:04 to WTC.
The NY side was uneventful. It was a bit confusing getting out of WTC- I wanted to go out towards the west side so I can run on the Hudson River Greenway for a bit but I had no idea where the exit was. I jogged down a corridor away from the main hall which I know was facing east, and ended up exiting right onto the greenway already on the west side of the west side highway, which was perfect. I started my watch right away, and the GPS picked up about 2 minutes later. Dodged some pedestrians, cyclists, tried to cut some corners when possible, tagged the rest of the stops and that was it.
It was a really fun trip, I'd love to see other people go for it and especially try to figure out if ending at Exchange Place is more efficient. Or maybe some other route which I haven't thought of??? I must say that I am a bit irked that I left about 9 minutes on the table sitting at Hoboken (blaming NJ Transit for that). The timing of the trains is definitely a big factor - later in the morning the trains are more frequent but then the commuting traffic on the roads is much busier. So there's some interesting factors to think about.