Runners make a loop around the trails that wind through Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park at the Big Woods Run Half Marathon, about an hour’s drive south from Minneapolis. The race starts and finishes at St. John’s United Church of Christ in Wheeling, just outside Faribault, and then heads north along Jacobs Avenue to 180th Street, where runners make a left and then head into the 2,882-acre park’s trails, to the northern end of the park and back.
(MORE: Big Woods Run Half Marathon event details)