Trail Races

Not everything has to be ultra distances or in mountainous terrain, from Running Times online…

Short, Fast Trail Races

From 10K to Marathon, we highlight great trail races that aren't ultra distance

As featured in the September 2010 issue of Running Times Magazine

Say "trail racing" and many conjure an image of Scott Jurek-like ultramarathoners running over extreme Western terrains. Trail running is something done "out there" in the big national parks. But trails are as close as your neighborhood woods, and trail races come in all distances and technical levels -- races you can do in a morning but that are a world apart from a tame, paved 5K road race.

To be a good short-distance trail racer, you have to think of yourself as a dune buggy or Jeep. You can cruise at top speed in the rare situations where the ground is flat and firm, but in an instant you might need to gear down and slowly maneuver up steep climbs or over treacherous terrain. On downhills, you can let gravity be your guide and bomb downward as fast as the footing will allow, knowing another steep climb might be right around the next tight corner.

It's about constantly adapting to the unique demands of the trail and not revving your engine too high. And to elite American mountain runner Rickey Gates, that's the Zen of running trails.

"With road running, you can get away with having one or two gears. In trail running, you have to be able to have five gears and be able to shift from first to fifth and fifth to first immediately," Gates says. "You go from redline in the first mile to resting a bit on downhills to redlining again to resting again. It makes the sport much more complicated and very unpredictable, but that's exactly what makes the sport so much fun."

Whether you've stuck to roads, thinking that trails were either too far "out there" or only about fun, not utilizing your running prowess, or if you're a long-distance trail racer who hasn't sampled the shorter, high-energy trails, here are a sampling of race experiences to entice you.

Read on here.