A mill race, raceway or mill lade (in Scotland) is the current or channel of a stream, especially one for conducting water to or from a water wheel

Water wheel

A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of free-flowing or falling water into useful forms of power. A water wheel consists of a large wooden or metal wheel, with a number of blades or buckets arranged on the outside rim forming the driving surface...

 or other device for utilizing its energy. The race leading to the water wheel is called the head race, and the race leading away from the wheel is called the tail race.

Hikers on the Ben Utter Trail in Arcadia State Park

Arcadia State Park

Arcadia State Park is a state park in Richmond, Exeter, Hopkinton, and West Greenwich, Rhode Island. The Arcadia Management Area contains 14,000 largely forested acres and is the state’s largest recreational area.-External links:*...

, Hope Valley, Rhode Island

Hope Valley, Rhode Island

Hope Valley is a village and census-designated place in the town of Hopkinton in Washington County, Rhode Island, United States. The population of the CDP was 1,649 at the 2000 census...

, can see the site of a former sawmill and may notice man-made channels cut into the granite. These grooves formed the millrace, increasing the speed of the water as it approached the sawmill so that it would have adequate force to turn the mill's huge waterwheel.

Mill Race was also the name of a test of nuclear technology using 620 tons of conventional explosives, conducted in 1981 at the White Sands Missile Range

White Sands Missile Range

White Sands Missile Range is a rocket range of almost in parts of five counties in southern New Mexico. The largest military installation in the United States, WSMR includes the and the WSMR Otera Mesa bombing range...

.

Besides Scotland, certain races in England, such as ones in Godmanchester

Godmanchester

Godmanchester is a small town and civil parish within the Huntingdonshire district of Cambridgeshire, in England. It lies on the south bank of the River Great Ouse, south of the larger town of Huntingdon, and on the A14 road....

, Cambridgeshire and Nayland, Suffolk are called "mill lade".