Athens Big Fork Trail Marathon & 17 Mile Fun Run

🏞️ Race Overview

Welcome to the 27th annual Athens Big Fork Trail Marathon and 17 Mile Blaylock Creek Fun Run. Both events are on an “out-and-back” well marked course beginning and ending at the Big Fork Community Center, utilizing the Athens-Big Fork trail.

• Cumulative Gain: Full Marathon runners will climb eight mountains twice with ~7,000' of cumulative gain.
• Donation: The event is free/donation based. A minimum $25 donation is suggested to cover our costs.
• Beneficiaries: All proceeds over our cost will be donated to the Big Fork Community Center and the Ouachita Amateur Radio Association, who help us keep our runners safe.

🍔 Post-Race Details

We will have three fully stocked aid stations. All aid stations will be fully stocked with your typical aid station fare. In addition, each of our aid captains provide their own bougie concoctions for you to enjoy.

• Cupless Race: Please bring your own cup or handheld because the race will be cupless this year.
• Meal Tickets: There will be an option to purchase a post-race meal ticket.
• Caterer: The post race meal will be catered once again by Cheryl with the Big Fork Mall (details coming soon for race swag and meal tickets via email).
• Purchasing: Buy early because there will be no race-day meal ticket purchases and swag is pre-purchase only.

🎉 Community and Awards

We encourage you to bring a chair, blanket and other comfort items and plan to stick around to cheer in the finishers. The community experience at the finish is one of the many things that makes this race so unique and popular.

• Overall Awards: We will have awards for overall male and female in both the full and fun runs.
• Unique Awards: We also offer unique awards to our 10 and 20 year finishers.
• No Finish Awards: We do not offer finish awards because this race experience is reward enough.

🗺️ Course and Aid Stations

Aid Stations:

• Little Missouri Trailhead: Mile 3.8 Outbound & Mile 22.4 Inbound
• Blaylock Creek West Trailhead: Mile 8.5 Outbound & Mile 17.7 Inbound
• Turnaround: (Forest Rd B23F – Southern Trailhead) Mile 13.1 – the turn around

⏳ Timing and Cutoff

3:42PM Cutoff (Mile 22.4) and 10:30AM Cutoff (mile 8.5) for marathon runners will be enforced.

Marathon runners may drop to the 17 mile fun run on race day. We highly encourage all marathon runners to take a good assessment of how you are feeling when you reach Blaylock Creek (mi 8.5) and if it just isn't your day switch to the Fun Run.

🦺 Safety and Required Gear

Hydration system (handheld or bladder) and a light source (handheld or headlamp) are required. A windbreaker or space blanket is strongly suggested but not required.

• Safety Priority: Runner safety is a high priority for us.
• Emergency Communication: We will have HAM radio operators at every aid station in communication with us at Net Control.
• Medical Support: Several medical entities will be on standby.
• Cell Phone: It is worth taking your cell phone because runners are often able to get service on the top of some of the mountain peaks.

⚠️ Important Notes

NOTE: This event is NOT for trail-newbies. If you are not an experienced trail – or ultra-runner (or adventure racer), we happily invite you to one of the other UTS runs, BUT NOT THIS ONE.

This is a difficult event on a difficult trail that presents many opportunities for one to get lost, injured, exhausted, or incapacitated–with sparse access for rescue.

A cut-off time of 10:30am (2.5 hours) will be enforced at the turn-around (half-way) point for the 17-mile run. Runners reaching that point after 10:30 must turn around (NOT proceed on the marathon course).

🔗 Registration Link

You can register for the race at this link.