Following a course that takes runners on an out-and-back route through the North Valley neighborhood as well as the nearby Village of Los Ranchos area, the race starts on Winter Haven Road, near Defined Fitness and Montano Plaza Drive.
From there, runners head out first down through Los Pablanos, and then after making the turn, head back north of the school into the neighborhoods in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque.
Incorporated back in the 1950s, the area that is now the Village of Los Ranchos has played an important role in the city’s agricultural history, and archaeological evidence even points to human settlements here as long as 2,500 years ago.
Today, the neighborhoods that make up Los Ranchos are still marked in many places by the agricultural influences of decades past, including the linea or tripa pattern of land development, in which lots were made to be long and narrow in order to ensure access to both irrigation and roads.
Runners make their way through both residential neighborhoods in this section of the city as well as past local landmarks like Casa Rondena Winery, which runners pass right by between the 3rd and 4th mile markers, along Chavez Road.
The home stretch of the race features a long, roughly two-mile straightaway along Albuquerque’s scenic Rio Grande Boulevard (which runs parallel to the river of the same name) before bringing runners into Alvarado Elementary School for the race finish.