The Mount Vernon Trail has secured a place in Rails to Trails Conservancy’s catalog of the nation’s best trails.
Trails advocacy organization Rails to Trails Conservancy announced that the Mount Vernon Trail received 58% of public votes to win the Hall of Fame accolade. The other nominees were National Battlefield Trail in Texas and the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail in Ohio. Public voting was open from Aug. 5 to 16.
The 18.5-mile Mount Vernon Trail is vying for the Rails to Trails Conservancy’s 2026 Trail Hall of Fame and needs public votes to win the accolade.
Mount Vernon Trail is one of three nominees for Rails to Trails Conservancy’s Hall of Fame, which the nonprofit has been recognizing multi-use trails on since 2007. Other nominees this year are the National Battlefield Trail in Texas and the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail in Ohio. Online voting started Aug. 5 and closes Aug. 16. Mount Vernon Trail fans can vote daily.
Alexandria’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade may have come and gone, but there are plenty more festivities coming to Alexandria celebrating the Emerald Isle.
Across the city, upcoming events include multiple bar crawls, live performances of Irish music and a feline-friendly “St. Catrick’s Day” at Mount Purrnon Cat Café + Wine Bar.
The Taco Bell DC 50K that passed through Alexandria for the first time in November is planning a comeback this fall.
About 500 people participated in last year’s Tex-Mex-fueled race, which is not sponsored by its titular fast food chain, but organized by local runners Phil Hargis and Mike Wardian. The 32.4-mile course takes runners and walkers to eight Taco Bell locations throughout Alexandria, Arlington, and D.C., where they are required to eat at least one menu item at every stop.
The annual St. Rita 5K returns tomorrow morning (Saturday), leading to some road closures in and around Potomac Yard.
The annual road race raises funds for St. Rita Catholic School’s classrooms, teachers and appreciation events for educators. The morning kicks off with a 1K “fun run” race at 8 a.m., before the main 5K race at 8:30 a.m. near George Washington Middle School at 1005 Mount Vernon Avenue.
Get your running shoes ready, because the Saint Rita Catholic School 5K and 1K Kids Fun Run are returning to Alexandria on Saturday, Nov. 15.
The races are a fundraiser for the school, and the course starts outside George Washington Middle School (1005 Mount Vernon Avenue), then heads down tree-lined Main Line Boulevard and Potomac Avenue, and returns to GW. More details on the races are below.
Thousands of runners, walkers and their dogs are expected to participate in the 49th annual Turkey Trot in Del Ray on Thanksgiving morning, Nov. 28.
The five-mile contest is touted as the “premier D.C. area Thanksgiving race” by the Del Ray Business Association. It started in 1975 with just 244 runners, and has since grown to 6,000+ participants.
A group of Alexandria runners from the Old Town Run Club will be making a four-day trip from the Pentagon up to New York City next month to commemorate 9/11.
In a release, the club said the plan is to depart on the morning of Sept. 8 with a military send off and reading at the Pentagon.
Alexandria sprinter Kai Cole won’t be running in the U.S. Olympic trials this weekend, even though he’s fast enough.
In a message posted on social media Thursday, Cole said that his qualifying time of 10.05 seconds in the 100 meter dash at the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference’s outdoor track and field championships last month was rejected by USA Track & Field.
Retired Alexandria Sheriff Dana Lawhorne and former Alexandria City High School principal John Porter have been named the grand marshals of the 48th annual Alexandria Turkey Trot.
Lawhorne retired last year after a 43-year career in law enforcement in the city, and Porter was a teacher for Alexandria City Public Schools for more than 20 years and the principal at ACHS (back when it was named T.C. Williams High School) for 22 years.
The fastest man on the planet is an Alexandrian.
Noah Lyles cemented his place in history last week with a hat trick at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, by winning the 100-meter and 200-meter races, and brought home the gold for Team USA as anchor in the 4×100 relay.
