We roll out of our beds before the babies wake up,

before the sunlight begins to filter through the blinds. We slide on our shorts and lace up our shoes, grab a banana and a bottle of water, and head out to our holy place. You can find us there every Saturday or Sunday morning, our special days, our time to commune with our gods. Our sanity (and the comfort of those who must live with us) relies on our completing this ritual each week. Our destination is sacred and has been for generations. We are the runners of First Landing State Park. It is our commons, our church, our hallowed place of worship and meditation… and of sweat.

The Path at First Landing

The park was built in 1933 by “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” a group of unemployed men brought together by the New Deal as part of the Emergency Conservation Work Act, and was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1965 (a title bestowed upon fewer than 600 natural areas in the United States today). In 1997, Seashore State Park’s name was changed to First Landing State Park because the Jamestown settlers landed there, well, first, and Virginia wanted to commemorate this bit of history (likely in preparation for the “Jamestown 2007” activities across Hampton Roads). Today First Landing is the most popular of our state parks, with over a million visitors each year.

But to most of us locals, it will always be “Seashore,” a fitting name for a park that covers over 2,800 acres where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Chesapeake Bay. It sits between Fort Story and Broad Bay and is a fitness destination as much as it is a local landmark.

Many of the area’s cross country teams run there, the Hampton Roads chapter of the country’s largest charity-driven marathon training group – The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training – has trained there for decades, and the local race directors of the nationally acclaimed J&A Racing Series (Shamrock Sportsfest, Wicked 10K, Virginia is for Lovers 14K) have their headquarters within jogging distance.

On a typical weekend morning, you’ll find runners, walkers, bikers, and hikers converging on the park for a few hours of solace. It’s a place where we can hide from the realities of our lives, just over 20 blocks from the resort strip yet a world away from the garish souvenir t-shirts and panama hats and bicycles-built-for-families-of-six that wobble down the boardwalk bike paths. Nineteen miles of trails meander through the maritime forest, osprey soar overhead, winds whisper through the marsh grasses, and one of the highest points in the city (one that’s not made out of a mountain of trash) awaits those adventurous enough to hit some of the more obscure trails.

It is stunning in its loveliness, our chapel amidst the trees. The towering pines dripping with Spanish moss, the Bald Cypress trees and their elephantine trunks, the still marsh waters reflecting verdant leaves and the blue sky beyond them, the crunch of the brush beneath our feet – these trails have a power over their visitors that is almost tangible.

The Trunk of a Bald Cypress

Psychic Edgar Cayce is said to have come to Virginia Beach because a vision told him to, and he headquartered his Association for Research and Enlightenment at 67th Street between the “twin energies” of the park and the sea. He considered the ocean, the sand, and the pine trees to be healing and often spoke of a high spiritual vibration in the area.

Maybe that vibration is what keeps us returning to the park each week. Maybe it’s why those who leave the area can’t find another place quite like it in their new hometowns. Or maybe it’s just that we as runners thrive on the ritual of putting one foot in front of the other, and the natural surroundings in First Landing, our park, make it even more pleasing to put on our running shoes and hit the trails.

For more information on First Landing State Park, click here.