Kinderhook Trail Run

Saturday was a beautiful and warm sunny day and my husband and I took advantage of that by running the Kinderhook Dutch Farming Heritage 4 mile trail run. The course traversed the farmlands of Lindenwald, Roxbury Farm and the Luykas Van Alen House.

Lindenwald was the home of U.S. President Martin Van Buren and the property is a National Park Service registered site.  There are tours of the house afterwards, but we passed as we had done that in previous years.

President Martin Van Buren was very contemporary for his time - he had one of the first indoor flush toilets.  He also had a modern coffee maker; in fact if he were alive today he would have a Keurig machine, an espresso maker, and all kinds of coffee making gadgets.  Yes, I remember that from my last tour of the home.

The trail itself is great because it is dirt and grass, with absolutely no rocks and roots.  Part of the trail runs right alongside the pastures.  The cows and baby calves were all out there mooing like crazy! It was reassuring to know that the fence that separated the animals from the runners is electrified.  We were warned not to touch it, and apparently the cows knew too!

I felt really good and the only difficult part was a steep hill at the very end, but I ran it without having to walk. My total time was 50:47 (pace 12:42). This run was super low key; there were only 60 or so runners.


Lindenwald - you can see the finish line water station at the right

Last year's run - photo courtesy of National Park Service

Afterwards, we stopped at a nearby farm to buy some apples and cider donuts to bring home.

Thanks for reading!