The Best Places to Run in Boston

Here are a few suggestions:

1) Minuteman Bike Path - this actually starts East of Davis
Square in Sommerville and runs to the Alewife T station
and then parallel to Route 2 all the way up to Bedford and
has markers at each mile starting at Alewife. Contrary to wait a previous poster said, most of it is not plowed
in the winter, only sections are. Last winter it was
pretty much unusable, but this winter it is in pretty
good shape - its been cold, but not much snow on the ground. One option if the bike path is unrunnable due to snow is to run on Mass. Ave which parallels the path
most of the way out and has a good size shoulder to run on once you get into Arlington and not a lot of traffic on the weekends - you also get some more hills in if you do this.

2) The emerald neckplace system of parks runs along the
riverway from Fenway through Jamaica Plain all the way to
the Franklin Park Zoo. You need to run on the sidewalk or
streets for brief sections, but most of it is on dirt or
paved paths, including a loop around Jamaica Pond which is
nice. If you go all the way to the zoo there is a good
sized hill leading up to the zoo if you want to get some
hills in. The BAA Half Marathon runs much of this route.

3) Mystic River - there are trails that run along side
the Mystic River on and off all the way from 93 through
Somerville, Arlington and up into Winchester. The
section along the East side of the Mystic lakes next
to Mystic Valley Parkway is nice and the street has
a good shoulder to run on if you need to in the winter.

3) Fresh Pond - there is a 2.25 to 2.5 mile loop (depending
on how you run it) around Fresh Pond in Cambridge. The
loop can get old, but it is largely protected from the
wind, and is plowed and sanded in the winter. There
are markings on the path every 200M which can be useful for tempo runs or long intervals and there are indoor
and outdoor drinking fountains and a public restroom at the water treatment facility. Watch out for dogs as a lot of people walk there dogs there.

4) Great Meadows - a few people have already mentioned the
Battle Road and Walden Pond out in Concord, but another
less known option is Great Meadows. There are a couple
of loops around the lakes that are very pretty and surprisingly isolated. Not really runable if there is much snow on the ground though.

5) City Streets - if the weather is bad or you are running in the dark, often the only safe place to run that on the street. A good resource for planning runs on the streets
are the Boston bike maps - streets that are marked as good
bike routes generally have a good flat shoulder and not too much traffic.

Hope this helps.

LetsRun.com