Run­ning through Watkins Glen, NY

This week my 48 state run took me through Watkins Glen, NY. Located on the south­ern tip of Seneca Lake, Watkins Glen is a major tourist des­ti­na­tion in New York’s Fin­ger Lakes country.

First, my route went past Watkins Glen Inter­na­tional, which fea­tures world-​​class rac­ing includ­ing NASCAR, Indy, and his­toric & vin­tage car races. It’s quite the attrac­tion dur­ing the sum­mer, espe­cially when NASCAR is in town — but I tend to pre­fer the Vin­tage Grand Prix. There’s noth­ing like watch­ing his­toric race cars from as far back as the 1920’s com­pete against other his­toric cars from the same era! And between heats, the cars are all out on dis­play for everyone’s admiration.

Just a few miles away from the race­track is Watkins Glen State Park where you can hike (or run) a fan­tas­tic gorge.

The scenery here is really quite fan­tas­tic as you can tell from these pic­tures! The gorge is also quite steep. My route doesn’t come right down into the gorge, but instead fol­lows the trails hug­ging the rim.

There are hik­ing trails through­out Watkins Glen State Park which allow you to explore many of the nooks and cran­nies in this beau­ti­ful gorge. The entire Glen is rid­dled with water­falls, rang­ing from the majes­tic, like the one in the photo above, to tiny cas­cad­ing ledges which make you feel like you’re in a huge zen gar­den.

At the base of the Glen lies the town of Watkins Glen, NY and the south­ern tip of Seneca Lake. From here I’ll con­tinue my way up the west­ern side of the lake, run­ning north­west towards Penn Yan on Keuka Lake and then Canandaigua on Canandaigua Lake.

Don’t for­get to fol­low along on the course map. If you view the map on Map​MyRun​.com you’ll find a link above the map which allows you to view a course fly-​​by video. Check it out!

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