First Landing State Park

First Landing State Park is a 2,888 acre park located on Cape Henry at the northern end of Virginia Beach. It’s a great option to combine a beach run with the park’s 19 miles of trails. There’s a good variety of trails in the park, featuring a cypress swamp, salt marsh, maritime forest, freshwater wetlands, dunes, and bay shoreline. The Visitor Center is off Shore Dr. at the northern section of the park. Access from the beach is off 64th St. at the southern end of the park.

The best bet for running is the Cape Henry Trail, which is a wide, 6-mile gravel trail that can also be used as a bike path, through forests, cypress swamps, and salt marsh. It’s mainly wooded, but the the southern section of the trail runs along Lake Susan Constant and Wolfsnare Creek for 1.5 miles. The trail also heads north for 3.5 miles toward the Trail Center, and even continues outside the park as a bike path, paralleling Shore Drive/Rt. 60. There are some other trails in the park that are hillier and good for trail running.