Home › Massachusetts › Lexington
Running trails in Lexington, MA
Lexington has 14 trails in the directory — 1 paved and 1 on crushed gravel or dirt, 2 boardwalk, 1 loop that returns to the trailhead, 5 with a stated distance, and 5 open 24 hours. 11 of them post opening hours, so you can check the gate before an early start. They're ranked here by rating weighted by review volume, across 1,000 Google reviews. Filter by surface, loop, distance, shade or lighting to get to the run you're actually planning — no made-up difficulty score, just the facts you'd check before driving out.
trailhead to Burlington Landlocked Forest
4.6 ★★★★★ 250 reviews
A long, narrow, forested park that's popular for hiking and mountain biking.
Whipple Hill
4.5 ★★★★★ 240 reviews
This 120-acre conservation area offers 4 miles of trails, a pond & lots of plant & animal life.
Arlington's Great Meadows
4.6 ★★★★★ 183 reviews
183-acres of wet meadows & uplands with trails for viewing an array of plants & wildlife.
Willard's Woods
4.6 ★★★★★ 112 reviews
This 100-acre conservation area offers trails through meadows, wetlands & pine groves.
Lower Vine Brook
4.4 ★★★★☆ 29 reviews
Juniper Hill
4.3 ★★★★☆ 22 reviews
28-acre tract of conservation land featuring paths through oak & maple woods to the top of a hill.
No trails match those filters.
How to pick a trail in Lexington
- Match the surface to your legs. Lexington gives you a choice: 2 boardwalk, 1 paved, and 1 natural surface. Asphalt and concrete are fast, predictable and runnable year-round but the least forgiving; crushed limestone and dirt take the sting out of high mileage; boardwalk is flat and scenic but slick in the wet. If your shins or knees are complaining, the fix that actually works is varying the surface you run on rather than chasing one "best" one. More boardwalk trails →
- Loop or out-and-back? 1 trail here is a loop, so you finish back at the car with no backtracking — the easiest way to run a set distance without thinking about it. On an out-and-back you turn round at half your target distance, which makes any trail fit any run. The longest stated distance in Lexington is Whipple Hill at 50 mi. 5 trails are long enough for a 5-mile-plus run without repeating yourself.
- Check the hours before a 6am run. 5 trails in Lexington are open 24 hours — the rest can sit inside a park that gates at dusk and doesn't unlock until well after sunrise. 11 of the 14 listings carry posted opening hours — worth a look before you set an alarm.
- Long run? Check water and restrooms first. 2 have trailhead parking and 1 has restrooms in Lexington. Anything over an hour and those stop being nice-to-haves — and in summer, shade counts double.
- The small things that decide it. 2 that runners describe as quiet and 5 dog-friendly. Busy or quiet isn't a good-or-bad thing here: a busy path is the safer choice for a solo run at dawn, a quiet one is better for intervals.
More on all of this in the trail-running guides.
Browse Lexington trails by type
Running trails near Lexington
Worth the short drive — the closest towns with trails in the directory.