Those of you who know me, know that my whole family runs! If you are new to the Leesburg area, I want to introduce you to four of my favorite Loudoun County Running Trails in this video:
- The W&OD Trail (and the Friends of the Washington & Old Dominion Trail who take care of the water fountains!)
- Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park.
- Ida Lee Recreation Center
- Morven Park
There are LOTS of Leesburg Running Trails out there and the W&OD trail is way bigger than just Loudoun County. It connects from Purcellville to Arlington, but I feel like the Loudoun County section is the BEST section of the W&OD with lots of great places to start and see different things. It's also great for biking.
Be sure to check out my cycling blog posts in this Spotlight on Loudoun Blog Series for details on cycling the W&OD!
And while the W&OD is completely paved, the C&O canal is crushed and packed stone. It's not quite a smooth as the W&OD but it is pretty nice... and almost completely shaded too!
You can find that in the Spotlight series also where we bike to Brunswick across from Lovettsville! Box Car Burgers for the win!
I like to include Morven Park as one of the good Loudoun County running trails simply because it's a great connector if you are looking for a long run, and if you are looking for a shorter run, the local high schools use Morven as a place to train and they also hold several of their 5k races there also.
Ida Lee recreation center does have trails you can run on, and they do hold several 5k races at Ida Lee such as the Freeze Your Gizzard 5K. But, it's also just a great place to start and end your run if you have a pass, because you can go shower off at Ida Lee after your run!
I've also seen triathletes use Ida Lee because they can do a multisport workout and swim laps at the Ida Lee Pool, jump on their bike and head through Old Waterford Knoll neighborhood to get to the W&OD trail, and then come back and head out for their run.
And these are just a few of the places I like to run, not to mention all the neighborhoods around Leesburg that link these places together! Leesburg is a really GREAT place for runners!
And I should point out that where I live in Raspberry Falls, there are two great runs. First is a 1.25 mile loop that I like to splits on, and the other is a complete neighborhood loop of 3.5 miles! You can also just run out and back on Raspberry for a 4 miler if you want... and on the RARE occasion when the golf course is closed, you can put together 10 miles on the paved golf path! During COVID, I had the opportunity to run on it a few times, but please don't run on the course while it's open! Getting hit with a golf ball is not fun!
