Suffer Better 9th Annual Fall Trail Runs

We are stoked to once again invite you all to come run with us at Staunton State Park, off of Highway 285 near Conifer, CO, on October 11, 2025.  We are even more stoked to again offer our special 25K Fishslappers edition (yes, it involves catching a fish!) and a 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 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 and Running Rivers to protect and preserve them.

Race Date:  Saturday, October 11, 2025

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.  All races start from the Mason Creek parking lot.

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

Volunteers at the aid station can assist you as needed on the hydration front, and ensure you get the other food you need. 

There are course maps 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 3, a couple of which you'll hit 2X:  One at the intersection of Marmot Passage, Borderline and Staunton Ranch Trails, one at the Elk Falls Pond and one at the intersection of Staunton Ranch and Scout Line Trails.

Race Entry:  25K (both the regular run and the new Fishslappers division):  $75;  50K: $110 (there is also early bird pricing, $60 and $90 respectively, so sign up early and save some green!); 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 and Running Rivers.  The more we all raise, the more good we do.

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) 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.