Virginia Trail Running Festival

The Virginia Trail Running Festival runs on the New River Trail, a 57-mile rail trail of crushed gravel that follows the New River through southwest Virginia. Everything starts and finishes at the Mark E. Hufeisen Horse Center inside New River Trail State Park, and the courses are out and backs on the trail rather than loops, crossing the river repeatedly on old railroad trestles several hundred feet long.

It is built to be fast. The organiser puts the 100 miler at about 2,000 feet of climbing over the whole distance, calls the grade nowhere steeper than about one percent outside a single hill up to Draper, and pitches the weekend as a good first hundred or a place to chase a personal best. The 100 miler and 50 miler go at 6:00 a.m. and the 50K at 7:00, all on the Saturday in mid-October, with 33, 16 and 12-hour limits. Entry is straight sign-up on UltraSignup. It is not a Western States 100 qualifier.

Out and back on the New River Trail, a crushed-gravel rails-to-trails path beside the New River, starting and finishing at the Mark E. Hufeisen Horse Center in New River Trail State Park. The surface is smooth and non-technical and the profile nearly flat, with the organiser giving about 2,000 feet of gain over the full 100 miles and describing the small hills as no steeper than about a one percent grade; the one real climb, three to four percent, comes up from the river to Draper and is on the 100 mile course only. The course is not flagged, and runners turn at two junctions and at marked turnaround points. Aid stations repeat as the courses double back through Jubilee Park, Fries, Gambetta, Hiawassee and Draper. The organiser cautions that its aid-station mileages come from mapping software and are approximate.

Entry is first-come sign-up on UltraSignup, with no lottery, no application and no qualifying standard. No field cap and no registration opening date are published, and the organiser says it can rarely state how many places are left; a waitlist appears on UltraSignup only where one has been enabled, and none is shown. Entry closes two days before the race. The 2026 prices are $325 for the 100 miler, $165 for the 50 miler and $95 for the 50K, and every runner also pays a $5 donation to the local rescue squads plus the state park's own daily entrance fee.