Trail Running - DC Area

Triathlon Forum
1

Anyone out there have favorite trail running haunts in the metro DC area, in a say 50 mile radius? I’ve currently explored a lot of the Fairfax County Parks and the Cross-County Trail and even tackled Bull Run-Occuquan and some runs in the Shenandoah.

Looking for distances between 10 and 30 miles if you can. I know I’m being demanding, but I also love that DC-VA-MD folks love to help out a fellow ST poster.

Thanks in advance.

-TS

2

C&O Towpath though it’s not a gnarly trail, it’s mostly a flat wide non-paved path along the canal.
http://bikewashington.org/canal/

That web site has links to other trails in the Washington Metro area.

BrokenSpoke

3

Shaeffer Farms in Germantown, MD has some great trails. Look at http://more-mtb.org and look at “Places to Ride”. A lot of the mtb trails for runner friendly as well.

4

The Seneca Greenway Trail is a nice long run, it goes from the Tow Path up past Germantown. They actually run a 50 K race on it, here is the link: http://senecacreektrailrace.com/

There’s also decent trail running up at Sugarloaf, but that is pretty far north.

5

It was a long time ago, but when I lived there you could find trails in Rock Creek Park, I always liked the mall, and if you don’t mind paved trails you have almost unlimted options on either side of the river, up Rock Creek and along the highway that goes to Dulles. I also used to like going on night time runs around the city, most of downtown rolls up at night and you can link some pretty cool runs together…I had a fav that went up the Exorsist steps in Georgetown.

6

Thanks for the hints everyone. C&O Canal? C’mon people thats soul-crushingly boring.

Any more hardcore options are appreciated.

Thanks again for the responses though.

7

some have already mentioned:
Seneca State Park
Greenway Trail
Schaeffer Farms

others:
Black Hill Regional Park
http://www.mcparkandplanning.org/Parks/facilities/regional_parks/blackhill/documents/black_hill_regional_map.pdf
Little Bennett
Rock Creek Trail

http://www.mcparkandplanning.org/parks/ppsd/parktrails/index.shtm

there is a connector from Black Hill to Schaeffer…you can run forever!

8

also check out www.mcrrc.org (Montgomery County Road Runners)…good info on there about group trail runs.

9

check out the Quantico Marine Corps base - west side of I-95. some of the greatest trails around.