By lirunning.com - The St. James 5 mile begins near the St. James firehouse on Route 25A and Lake Avenue. (Actually, the measured course begins about 0.25 mile from there on Thompson Hill Road.) It continues up to Three Sisters Road, east to Farm Road, north to Gate Road, east to Hitherbrook Road, north to Bacon Road (at a fork), north to Harbor Road, west to Cordwood Path, south to Moriches Road, where the course ends about 1.5 miles later just past the historic St. James general store. The course is very hilly, but extremely quiet and beautiful. It passes working farms, and nature preserves, as well as million dollar homes. The course also passes next to Stony Brook Harbor, which can be seen to the north of Harbor Road. The David Weld Nature Preserve is maintained by the Nature Conservancy. It has a marked entrance on Boney Path in Nissequogue, and several other access points in the area. The preserve contains marked trails (I believe over three miles of them) and provides greatly varied topography, including woods, shoreline, plains and wetlands. Near the entrance is a bulletin board where maps and printed guides are (sometimes) available. Both of these runs are within a couple of miles of each other, so it is possible to do both at one time. In addition, they can be expanded to include a run along Long Island Sound from Short Beach to Long Beach (tides permitting - at high tide there is no place to run except along the top of bulkheads or in the water) or east along 25A to Stony Brook village and the old grist mill at the end of Harbor Road at Main Street. If this is not too clear, take a look at an area map. I promise you a great run or two. Submitted by Robert Braun.

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