Tunnel Hill 100 2026: The USATF 50 Mile Championships, Start Times and How to Follow

The 13th Tunnel Hill starts on Saturday, November 14, at 7:00 a.m. Central time from Vienna City Park in southern Illinois. The 100 mile, 100 km, 50 mile and marathon all go off together, and the course closes at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, 30 hours later, with no leniency. This year the 50 mile is also the 2026 USATF 50 Mile Championships.

We'll update this post through the weekend with the leaders and then the results.

Why is Tunnel Hill so fast?

The race runs out and back on the Tunnel Hill State Trail, a converted rail corridor through the Shawnee National Forest. It's crushed limestone the whole way, the race puts the grade at 2 percent at most, and the elevation stays between 340 and 680 feet. There's aid roughly every five miles and one 543-foot limestone tunnel. A 100 mile runner climbs about 1,800 feet in total.

That's why records keep falling here. These are the marks the race lists on its home page:

• ·100 mile, women: Caitriona Jennings, 12:37:04 in 2025, a world record at the time she ran it
• ·100 mile, men: Elov Olsson, 11:26:19 in 2023, which the race calls the world's best off-road
• ·50 mile, men: Charlie Lawrence, 4:48:21 in 2023, a world record
• ·50 mile, women: Anne Flower, 5:18:57 in 2025, a world record
• ·100 km, women: Courtney Olsen, 6:59:55 in 2025, an American record

Two of those runners won world titles this fall. At the IAU 100 km World Championships in Ames, Spain on September 20, Olsen won the women's race in 7:10:31 and Lawrence won the men's in 6:09:25, and the race says it hopes to see many of its alumni back in Vienna.

How do the USATF 50 Mile Championships work?

The championship is a separate entry inside the 50 mile, open to USATF members in good standing who are US citizens. Championship runners wear a second bib on their back. They can only take aid at official aid stations, and nobody can pace them except another runner in the championship race. Shoes have to meet the IAU's rules.

The top three men and women win $1,500, $750 and $500, and every prize winner gets a free entry to the 2027 race. The top 10 men and women get championship medals, as do the top three in each masters age group. Brogan Austin won last year's championship here in 5:02:54.

How can I follow Tunnel Hill live?

Timing is by Final Lap Racing, with mats at every aid station and at the turnaround, and the live results are on ChronoTrack. You don't need to sign up. Search for a runner, tap Track on their page, and the tracked list shows a projected time of day for each split they haven't reached yet. The main results page also counts how many runners have started and finished each distance, so you can see how many are still out.

100 mile runners have to be on their second 50 within 15 hours, and the second half carries its own aid-station cutoffs.

The night before, Zach Bitter, who ran a world-best off-road 100 miles of 12:08:36 here in 2018, gives a keynote by live stream at 6:00 p.m. Central on Friday, November 13. It's shown at the pre-race dinner and on his YouTube channel, with a Q&A afterwards.