My name is Junho Kim-Lee and I am was a senior at Sidwell Friends School. I’ve lived in the DMV area my whole life. I began running cross-country for Sidwell in 7th grade and in 9th grade, I added track & field and indoor track to my repertoire. As a result, I’ve been running in DC year-round for the past 4 years.
It used to be that I would blindly follow the upperclassmen on whatever trail they ran on, praying I wouldn’t get lost. I was overwhelmed with how all the trails seemed to twist and turn and interleave amongst each other. However, over time, I began to piece it all together and develop a cohesive knowledge of running routes and trails in DC.
What I began to realize was that DC is one of the best places to be a runner. It’s small enough that you can get places by running, and especially downtown, where traffic is especially heinous, being able to fly down the sidewalks without worrying about parking is quite liberating.
Furthermore, DC contains many dirt trails with entrances scattered all around the city that creates an entire network of transportation hidden to most. Maybe you’ve seen an entrance to a trail on the side of a road or behind a building and you had no idea where it led. Maybe you’ve walked past them and never even noticed them.
DC is full of running routes both on the road and on the trails if you know where to look. I have run countless routes in DC, but as my time in high school comes to an end, I wish to preserve the very best ones I have discovered as well as the ones that were handed down to me. This is my purpose for making this website.
Hopefully, you share my joy in running and will put what I have compiled here to good use.