The only Peregrines on the trail today were the Saucony kind but I did see 2 great blue herons, 5 beaver dams, a huge goose, 1 runner, and 2 walkers

Took a drive over the Newmarket NH to run the  Sweet Trail, a new out and back trail of about 8.5 miles. Named after donors it is Sweet indeed.

Through magnificent forests lined with old stone walls.

 By at least 6 glacial and beaver created ponds

and over ancient stone bridges

I saw 2 giant blue herons take flight, a very noisy goose, heard lots of other birds, and saw only a few other people the whole time. The beaver dams were impressive and well built.

The Sweet Trail crosses 2 towns, Newmarket and Durham, and is entirely on conservation and NH Fish and Game lands. Mellow single track on pine needles with some roots and rocks of course. This is New England after all!

 In the 1970's Aristotle Onassis the oil tycoon, proposed building one of the world's largest oil refineries on this land by Great Bay.  A plaque deep in woods marks where the center of the refinery complex would have been. This spot would have been in the middle of some huge tanks. Well, the locals stopped him dead in his tracks and since then various organizations have preserved this land.

This would have been the center of a $600 million oil refinery

Oh yes the shoes, almost forgot them: Saucony Pro Grid Peregrines. I have previously reviewed them in depth here.  This was my first run on New England trails in them and they performed just fine. Good grip on all but slick wet rock. Climb well. Plenty of rock stab protection for this type of trail. 

I used my Nike+SportsWatch in the woods and under tree cover for the first time. I have posted several times about the Nike+SportsWatch  here and here and with the exception of not showing average run pace I have been very impressed with its ease of use and flexibility.  I was planning on clocking the out leg and comparing distance to the return but got off on a side trail I could not resist.

Start the Sweet Trail off Bay Road in Newmarket about 1 mile from center of town.

With the exception of a short segment on the return where the tracks don't overlap exactly the GPS seemed to handle tree cover and lots of turns just fine.