Suffer Better 10th Annual Fall Trail Runs

We are super stoked to once again invite you to come run with us at Staunton State Park, off of Highway 285 near Conifer, CO, on October 10, 2026.  We are even more stoked to again offer our special 25K Fishslappers edition (yes, it involves catching a fish!) and our new 5K run to our 50 and 25K race day offerings.  Whichever distance you choose, rest assured you will be running on some of CO's best and most beautiful trails - lovely, flowing, and runnable single track - with some decent vert thrown in to keep you at least a little honest. And you will be helping raise real money to protect and preserve our exceedingly precious public lands and waters.  As always, our Fall runs are a celebration of our public lands and waters, and a fundraiser for the good work of Conservation CO, Western Resource Advocates and Running Rivers to protect and preserve them.

Race Date:  Saturday, October 10, 2026

Start Time:  Racers in the 50K will start at 7:30 am, with the 25K runners taking off at 8:30 am and the 5K runners blasting off at 10:00 am.  We will be starting and finishing at the Lazy V Parking lot, about 1.5 miles into the Park.  There is limited parking available, and the park will be busy on a Fall day.  So, please do your best to carpool (see below for the link to the carpool sheet) or, as the Park staff encourage us, stop by the Mountain View Park n Ride, just 6 miles from the start, and see if you can snag a few other runners for the ride into the Park.  

We are a bottle-free and cup-free event, so please bring your own bottles.  We'll have both water and gNarly hydration drink at our aid stations, so you can fill up along the way.

Volunteers at the aid stations can assist you as needed on the hydration front, and ensure you get the nutrition you need. 

There are course maps, including gpx files for each distance on this website, along with a written description of the course, so do check them out.  You can also download the Staunton Trail Map here:  https://cpw.state.co.us/placestogo/parks/Staunton/Documents/StauntonTrailsMap.pdf

Aid Stations.  We'll have 4, all of which you'll hit 2X in the 50K:  One on at the intersection of Bugling Elk and Staunton Ranch Trails (mile 4.6), one at the Old Mill (mile 7), one at the intersection of Dines Meadow and Staunton Ranch Trail (mile 10.6) and one at the Davis Ponds (mile 13.4).  We'll also have a few volunteers at the newly refilled Elk Falls Pond for those in the Fishslappers division to see if they can snag their fish early one.  

Race Entry:  25K and 25K Fishslappers: $75;  50K: $110; and, 5K, just $25.  

Like last year, this year's events are both crazy fun and challenging trail races, and a major part of our effort to raise awareness and funds to preserve and protect our precious public lands and waters.  We value these special outdoor places and believe strongly that as outdoor athletes we have an obligation to ensure their protection.  We ask/encourage/beg each of our runners to become fundraisers themselves and we have a special award for the runner who has raised the most $ by race day.  With our new Fishslappers Division, we are also raising money for Running Rivers, so check them out too. Runners also have the ability to enlist their friends and colleagues to help raise funds for Conservation CO, WRA  and Running Rivers.  The more we all raise, the more good we do.

Cutoff Times:

50K:  9 and a half hours:  You must reach Aid Station 2, at Old Mill by 3:30 pm on race day (8 hours in) in order to finish by 5:30.  If you reach this aid station after 3:30, our volunteers will not let you continue up the trail but have you simply go down the Old Mill trail to the finish.  Please, listen to them and do as asked.  

A note about distances:  We are using the distances laid out by the park, but you should know that we've done each of these routes multiple times, using a variety of standard measuring tools and apps (Suunto, Apple, Strava, COROS) and we have yet to record the same distance twice! So, for the record, the stated distances are effectively 5K-ish, 25K-ish and 50K-ish. 

25K: 8 and a half hours or no later than 5:00 pm.